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THE  NATIONAL  MUSEUM  OF 
HISTORY  AND  TECHNOLOGY 

SMITHSONIAN  INSTITUTION 


DIRECTOR   1969-1973 
SENIOR  HISTORIAN    1973-1975 


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\^^']  (American  C^urc^  ^isforg 

A  ^HISTORY 

OF  THE 

CONGREGATIONAL 
CHURCHES 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


BY 

WILLISTON  WALKER  ^igu-n^^ 

"PROFESSOR  IN   HARTPORD   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY 


mew  l^orf? 
C^fttfes  ^crifincr's  ^ons 


MDCCCXCIX 


Copyright,  1894, 
By  The  Christian  Literature  CoMP.\iRfo 


CONTENTS. 


Bibliography ix 

CHAP.  I. — The  Beginnings  of  Congregationalism. — The  Refor- 
mation and  the  Bible. — The  Reformation  Incomplete. — Calvin's 
Work. — The  Anabaptists. — Anabaptist  Principles. — The  English 
Reformation. — The  Early  Puritans. — Thomas  Cartwright. — Limita- 
tions of  Puritanism. — Advance  of  Anglicanism. — Diverse  Political 
Theories. — Congregational  Beginnings 1 

CHAP.  II. — Early  English  Congregationalism. — Robert  Browne. 
— Browne's  Spiritual  Development. — Browne's  Church. — Browne's 
Congregationalism. — The  London  Church.- — Greenwood  and  Bar- 
rowe. — Expositions  of  Congregationalism. — John  Penry. — Francis 
Johnson. — Exiles  in  Amsterdam 31 

CHAP.  III. — Congregationalism  Carried  to  America. — The  Pil- 
grim Church. — John  Smyth. — Pilgrims  at  Leyden. — The  Emi- 
gration.— Arrival  in  America. — Early  Struggles. — Robinson  and 
Brewster. — The  Plymouth  Church 56 

CHAP.  IV. — The  Puritan  Settlement  of  New  England — Puri- 
tanism Congregationalized. — Puritanism  not  Separatism. — 
-  Puritan  Hopes. — ^James  and  the  Puritans. — James  and  Parliament. 
— The  Policy  of  Charles. — Rise  of  Arminianism. — William  Laud. — 
Laud  and  the  Puritans. — Beginnings  of  Massachusetts. — Character 
of  Immigration. — Influenced  by  Plymouth. — The  Salem  Church. — 
The  Dorchester  Church. — Charlestown  and  Watertown. — A  State 
Church. — Settlement  of  Connecticut. — Settlement  of  New  Haven. 
— Milford  and  Guilford 76 

CHAP.  V. — The  Development  of  Fellowship. — A  Difficult  Situa- 
tion.— Roger  Williams. — Effects  of  the  Discussion. — The  "  Anti- 
nomians." — The  First  Synod. — Fate  of  the  Antinomians. — Baptists 
and  Quakers. — Puritanism  not  Alone  Severe. — Investigation  and 
Education. — Their  Effect. — Congregational  Treatises. — Vassall  and 
Child. — The  Cambridge  Synod. — The  "  Cambridge  Platform."  ....    125 

CHAP.  VI. — Congregationalism  from  1650  to  1725. — Indian  Mis- 
sions.— The  Half- Way  Covenant. — Convention  of  1657. — Synod  of 
1662. — Res^Uts   of  the   Dispute. — "  Stoddardeanism." — Half-Way 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Covenant  Abandoned. — Increase  Mather. — The  "  Reforming  Syn- 
od."— The  Confession  of  1680. — Loss  of  the  Charter.— The  Andros 
Episode. — The  New  Charter. — Salem  Witchcraft. — Ministerial  As- 
sociations.— Brattle  Church. — The  Proposals  of  1705. — Causes  of 
Friction. — The  "  Saybrook  Platform." — John  Wise  and  his  Theo- 
ries.— A  Synod  Forbidden 164 

CHAP.  VII. — Early  Theories  and  Usages. — Little  Doctrinal  Dis- 
cussion.— Theory  of  the  Church. — Covenants  and  Confessions. — 
Choice  of  Officers. — Ordination  of  Officers. — Duties  of  Officers. — 
Duties  and  Support. — Ministerial  Support. — Exemption  of  Dis- 
senters.— Separation  of  Church  and  State. — The  Meeting-house 
and  Services. — Sunday  Services. — The  Sacrament. — Other  Services, 
— Communion  of  Churches. — Legislative  Supervision 214 

CHAP.  VIII. — The  Great  Awakening  and  the  Rise  of  Theo- 
logical Parties. — Spiritual  Decline. — Edwards  and  the  Revivals. 
— George  Whitefield. — The  Great  Awakening. — New  England  Di- 
vided.— Connecticut  Separatists. — Criticisms  and  Replies. — Rise  of 
Doctrinal  Schools. — The  Liberals. — Mayhew  and  Briant. — Briant's 
Opponents. — Discussion  on  Original  Sin. — Jonathan  Mayhew. — 
Arian  Views. — Jonathan  Edwards. — Edwards's  Writings. — Joseph 
Bellamy. — Samuel  Hopkins. — Smalley,  West,  and  Edwards. — Early 
Universalism. — The  Atonement. — Nathanael  Emmons. — Timothy 
Dwight. — EfTects  of  the  Discussions. — Development  of  Polity  ....    251 

CHAP.  IX. — The  Evangelical  Revival. — Westward  Emigration. — 
Missionary  Societies. — Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists. — The 
"  Plan  of  Union." — Spiritual  Quickening. — Foreign  Missions. — 
The  American  Board. — The  "  Education  Society." — ^The  "  Home 
Missionary  Society." — The  Unitarian  Separation. — Theological  Ed- 
ucation.— Andover  Seminary. — Yale  Divinity  School. — Nathaniel 
W.  Taylor. — Bennet  Tyler. — Hartford  Seminary. — Oberlin  Semi- 
nary.— Finney  and  Bushnell. — Bushnell's  Views 309 

CHAP.  X. — The  Denominational  Awakening — Modern  Con- 
greg.\tionalism. — Formation  of  Associations. — Churches  in  Illi- 
nois and  Iowa. — Wisconsin  and  Minnesota. — Missouri  and  Oregon. 
— California^ — Bacon,  Thompson,  and  Clark. — The  "  Albany  Con- 
vention."— New  Societies. — Plenry  M.  Dexter. — Chicago  Seminary. 
— In  the  New  West. — A.  Hastings  Ross. — Ministerial  Standing. — 
The  "National  Council"  of  1865.— The  "Burial  Hill  Declara- 
tion."— A  Statement  of  Polity. — "American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion."— Woman's  Missionary  Societies. — The  Triennial  National 
Council. — The  "Creed  of  1883." — Recent  Tendencies. — The  An- 
dover Controversy. — The  American  Board. — Novel  Methods  of 
Work. — Employment  of  Women 370 

CHAP.  XI. — Congregational  F.a.cts  and  Tr.\its. — Congregational 

Statistics. — Congregational  Principles 427 


A    HISTORY   OF   THE   CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCHES 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


WILLISTON   WALKER, 

Professor  in  Hartford  Theological  Seminary. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Congregationalism  has  always  inclined  to  publication,  and  the  number  of 
works  really  germane  to  the  history  of  the  denomination  is  enormous  and 
constantly  increasing.  The  connection  of  the  body  with  the  settlement  of 
New  England  and  the  opening  up  of  the  West  has  led  to  some  treatment 
of  the  features  of  this  story  by  almost  every  writer  on  the  beginnings  of 
the  northern  United  States,  and  the  intimacy  which  marked  the  relationship 
of  the  Congregational  churches  to  the  civil  governments  during  much  of 
their  American  life  renders  town  and  colonial  histories,  legislative  records, 
and  even  personal  journals  scarcely  less  sources  of  religious  than  of  secular 
history.  Fortunately  for  the  student  of  Congregationalism,  a  bibliography 
of  works  in  any  way  related  to  the  theme  was  prepared  by  the  late  Rev.  Dr. 
Henry  M.  Dexter,  and  published  in  his  "  Congregationalism  of  the  last 
Three  Hundred  Years  "  (New  York,  Harper  &  Brothers,  1880).  This 
magnificent  list,  the  result  of  years  of  investigation,  extends  from  1546  to 
1879,  and  embraces  7250  titles.  Yet  even  this  is  not  exhaustive,  and 
a  complete  bibliography,  brought  down  to  1894,  would  probably  include  at 
least  8000  works  which  might  justly  be  claimed  to  illustrate  the  story 
of  Congregationalism  more  or  less  directly.  The  present  writer,  in  his 
"  Creeds  and  Platforms  of  Congregationalism  "  (New  York,  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons,  1893),  has  given  extended  bibliographies  of  the  leading 
Congregational  symbols  and  of  the  discussions  out  of  which  they  have 
grown. 

No  one  library  includes  all  Congregational  literature ;  but  the  student  will 
find  large  collections  in  the  possession  of  the  Congregational  Library  at 
Boston,  of  Yale  University  (Dr.  Dexter's  own  library),  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  or  of  the  Public  Library  (Prince  Library)  at  Boston,  and 
of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  at  Worcester.  Smaller  collections  of 
value  are  those  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society  at  Hartford,  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  and  of  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

The  following  list  is  presented  merely  as  suggestive  of  works  of  special 
importance  for  Congregational  History. 

Declarations  on  Faith  and  Polity. 

A  Trve  Description  ovt  of  tJie  Word  of  God,  of  the  Visible  Church.  [Dort], 
1589.     (The  first  Declaration  of  the  London-Amsterdam  Church.) 

A  Trve  Confession  of  the  Fuith,  and  Hvmble  Acknovvledgtiient  oe  the 
Alegeance,  which  wee  hir  Maie sties  Subjects,  falsely  called  Brownists, 
doo  hoicld  towards  God,  aiid  yeild  to  hir  Majestic  and  all  other  that  are 
ouer  vs  in  the  Lord.  [Amsterdam],  1596.  (The  second  Declaration  of 
the  London-Amsterdam  Church.) 


X  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

A  Platfortii  of  Church  Discipline  gathered  out  of  the  Word  of  God\  and 
agreed  upon  by  the  Eldej's  and  Messengers  of  the  Churches  assembled  in 
the  Synod  at  Ca/nbridge  in  Neto  England.  Cambridge,  1649.  (The 
Cambridge  Platform. ) 

Propositions  concerning  the  Subject  of  Baptism  and  Consociation  of  Chiijxhes, 
Collected  and  Confirmed  out  of  the  lVo7'd  of  God,  by  a  Synod  of  Elders 
and  Messengers  of  the  Churches  in  Massachnsets-Colony  iji  New- 
Englatid.  Assembled  at  Boston  .  .  .  In  the  Year  1662.  Cambridge, 
1662.     (The  Half- Way  Covenant  Synod.) 

A  Confession  of  Faith  Ozvned  and  Consented  unto  by  the  Elders  and  Messen- 
gers of  the  Churches  Assembled  at  Boston  in  A'eiu-England,  May  12, 
1680.     Boston,  1680.     (The  "  Confession  of  1680.") 

A  Confession  of  Faith  Oivned  and  Consented  to  by  the  Elders  and  Messen- 
gers of  the  Churches  in  the  Colony  of  Connecticut.  ,  .  .  The  Heads  of 
Agreement,  Assented  to  by  the  United  Ministers,  formerly  called  Presby- 
terian and  Congregational.  And  also  Articles  for  the  Administration  of 
Church  Discipline  Unanimously  agreed  upon  arid  consented  to  by  the 
Elders  and  Messengers  of  the  Churches  in  the  Colony  of  Connecticut  i7t 
New-England.  Assembled  by  Delegation  at  Say-Brook  September  gth, 
1708.     New  London,  1710.      (The  Saybrook  Platform.) 

The  ''  Plati  of  Union."  Minutes  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church,  etc.,  1789  to  1820,  Philadelphia  [1847],  pp.  224,  225. 

The  "Burial  Hill  Declaration."      Congregational  Quarterly,   vol.   x.,  pp. 

377,  378. 

Ecclesiastical  Polity.  The  Government  and  Communion  Practised  by  the 
Congregational  Churches  in  the  United  States  of  America.  Boston, 
Congregational  Publishing  Society,  1872.     (The  Boston  Platform.) 

The  "  Commission  Creed  of  188 j."     Congregationalist,  March  6,  1884. 

All  of  the  above,  except  the  "  Boston  Platform,"  are  reprinted  in  full  in 
Walker,  Williston,  The  Creeds  and  Platforms  of  Congregationalism. 
New  York,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1893. 

Besides  these  official  declarations,  the  various  state  bodies  publish  Minutes 
of  their  meetings,  and  the  following  National  Assemblies  have  published 
records,  viz.  :  (i)  Proceedings  of  the  General  Convention  of  Cong.  Alinisters 
and  Delegates  in  the  United  States,  held  at  Albany,  N^.Y.,  on  the ^th,  6th, 
yth,  and  8th  of  Oct.,  18^2.  New  York,  S.  W.  Benedict,  1852.  (2)  De- 
bates and  Proceedings  of  the  National  Council  of  Congregational  Churches, 
Held  at  Boston,  Mass.,  June  14-24,  1865.  Boston,  American  Congrega- 
tional Association,  1866.  (3)  Minutes  of  the  N'ational  Council  of  the 
Congregational  Churches  of  the  United  States  of  America.  (Issued  triennially 
since  1871  by  the  Congregational  Publishing  Society,  Boston.)  (4)  A  Year- 
book of  statistics,  ministerial  lists,  etc.,  has  been  published  in  some  form 
since  1854,  and  is  now  issued  by  the  Publishing  Committee  of  the  National 
Council  and  printed  by  the  Congregational  Publishing  Society,  Boston. 

Treatises  on  Congregational  Polity. 

Browne,  Robert,  A  Booke  luhich  She^oeth  the  life  and  manners  of  all  true 
Christians,  etc.  Middelburg,  imprinted  by  Richarde  Painter,  1582. 
(Extracts  reprinted  in  \Yalker's  "  Creeds  and  Platforms.") 


BIBLIOGRAPHY.  xi 

Barrowe,  Henry,  A  Brief  Discoturie  of  the  false  Church.     [Dort],  1590. 

Robinson,  John,  Various  treatises  written  between  1610  and  1625,  and 
collected  by  Robert  Ashton,  IVoj-ks  of  John  Robinson.  3  vols.  London, 
John  Snow,  185 1. 

[Mather,  Richard],  Church-Government  and  Chujrh-Covenant  Discussed, 
in  an  AnsT.ver  of  the  Elders  of  the  severall  Churches  in  New-E^tgland  to 
two  and  thirty  Questions.  London,  printed  by  R.  O.  and  G.  D.  for 
Benjamin  Allen,  1643. 

Cotton,  John,  The  Keyes  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  London,  1644. 
Reprinted,  Boston,  Tappan  &  Dennet,  1843 ;  and  Boston,  S.  R. 
Whipple  &  Co.,  1852. 

Hooker,  Thomas,  Sji7xiey  of  the  Summe  of  Church-Discipline.  London, 
printed  by  A.  M.  for  John  Bellamy,  1648. 

"Wise,  John,  The  Chtcrches  Quarrel  Espoused.  Boston,  1710. — A  Vin- 
dication of  the  Government  of  New  England  Churches.  Boston,  \']^.'^. 
Both  reprinted  in  one  volume.  Boston,  Congregational  Board  of  Publica- 
tion (now  Congregational  Sunday-School  and  Publishing  Society),  i860. 

Mather,  Cotton,  Ratio  Disciplines  Fratruni  N'ov-Anglorum.  Boston,  S. 
Gerrish,  1726. 

XJpham,  Thomas  C,  Ratio  Disciplince ;  or,  The  Constitution  of  the  Con- 
gregational Churches.     Portland  [Me.],  Shirley  &  Hyde,  1829. 

CummingS,  Preston,  A  Dictionary  of  Congregational  Usages  and 
Principles.  Boston,  1852.  Sixth  edition,  Boston,  S.  K.  Whipple  & 
Co.,  1855. 

Buck,  Edward,  Massachusetts  Ecclesiastical  Law.  Boston,  Congrega- 
tional Publishing  Society,  [1865]. 

Davis,  Woodbury,  Congregational  Polity,  Usages,  and  Law.  Boston, 
Proprietors  of  "  Boston  Review,"  1865. 

Dexter,  Henry  M.,  Congregationalisni  :  What  it  is  ;  Whence  it  is  ;  How 
it  works.     Boston,  Nichols  &  Noyes,  1865. 

Roy,  Joseph  E.,  A  Manual  of  the  Principles,  Doctrines,  and  Usages  of 
the  Congregational  Churches.      Chicago,  1869. 

Dexter,  Henry  M.,  A  Hand-Book  of  Congregationalism.  Boston,  Con- 
gregational Publishing  Society,  [1880]. 

-Ross,  A.  Hastings,  A  Pocket  Manual  of  Congregationalism.  Chicago, 
E.  J.  Alden,  1883. 

Boardman,  George  Nye,  Congregationalism.  Chicago,  Advance  Pub- 
lishing Company,  [if  ~ 


Sources  and  Histories. 

The  Colonial  Records  of  the  several  colonies  of  Plymouth,  Massachusetts, 

Connecticut,  and  New  Haven.     Now  largely  printed,  and  to  be  found  in 

any  well-equipped  historical  or  public  library. 
Bradford,  William,  History   of  Plymouth   Plantation    (Gov.   Bradford's 

Journal).     Boston,  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1856. 
Winthrop,    John,   History   of  New   England  from  i6jo  to  i64<p  (Gov. 

Winthrop's  Journal).     Best    edition    that    of   James    Savage,    Boston, 

Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1853. 
Mather,    Cotton,  Magnalia  Christi  Americana.     London,  1702.     Other 

editions,  Hartford,  Silas  Andrus,  1820;  and  Hartford,  Silas  Andrus  & 

Son,  1853-55. 


Xll  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Young,  Alexander,  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  Boston,  Little  & 
Brown,  1841  and  1844. — Chronicles  of  the  First  Planters  of  the  Colony 
of  Mass.  Bay.     Boston,  Little  &  Brown,  1846. 

Hanbury,  Benjamin,  Historical  Memorials  relating  to  the  Independents, 
or  Congregationalists  :  from  their  Rise  to  the  Restoration  of  the  Mon- 
archy, A.D.  MDCLX.  3  vols.  London,  printed  for  the  Congrega- 
tional Union  of  England  and  Wales ;  Fisher,  Son  &  Co.,  and  Jackson  & 
Walford,  1839-44.  (An  ill-arranged  work,  but  filled  with  reprints  and 
abstracts  of  great  value.) 

Felt,  Joseph  B.,  The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  New  England  [to  1678]. 

2  vols.     Boston,  Cong.  Board  of  Publication,  1855-62. 

Sprague,  William  B.,  Annals  of  the  Ame7-ican  Pitlpit,  vols.   i.  and  ii. 

New  York,  Robert  Carter  &  Bros.,  1857.     (Biographies.) 
Punchard,    George,    History  of  Congregatiojtalism.     5   vols,  in   revised 

edition.      New  York  and  Boston,  first  by  Hurd  &  Houghton,  and  then 

by  the  Congregational  Publishing  Society,  1865-81. 
Waddington,  John,  Congregational  History.      5  vols.     London,  Simmons 

&  Botten,  1869-78.     (Valuable,  but  not  always  accurate  in  quotations.) 
Dexter,  Henry  M,,   The  Cotigregationalism  of  the  last  joo  Years,  as  seen 

m  its  Literature.     New  York,   Harper  &    Brothers,    1880.       (An    in- 
dispensable work.) 
'Huntington,  George,  Outlines  of  Congregational  History.     Boston,  Cong. 

Pub.  Soc,  1885. 

The  following  Histories  will  also  be  found  of  great  value : 

Hutchinson,    Thomas,  History  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

3  vols.     Boston,  Thomas  and  John  Fleet,  1764-69. 

Palfrey,   John    G.,  History   of  N'ew   England.     5  vols.     Boston,  Little, 

Brown  &  Co.,  1859-90. 
Doyle,  J.  A.,  The  English   in  America  :   The  Puritan  Colonies.     2  vols. 

London,  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1887. 
jj'iske,   John,    The  Beginnings   of  N'ew   England.     Boston,    Houghton, 

Mifflin  &  Co.,  1889. 

Special  Themes. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Three  Episodes  of  Mass.    History.     Boston, 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1892. 
Bacon,   Leonard,  Thirteen  Historical  Discourses,  on  the  Completion  of  200 

Years  from  the  Begitifiing  of  the  First  Church  in  New  Haven.     New 

Haven,  Durrie  &  Peck,  1839. 
Bacon,  Leonard,  The  Genesis  of  the  New  Engla^id  Churches.    New  York, 

Harper  &  Brothers,  1874. 
Clark,  Joseph  S.,  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Congregational  Churches  in 

Massachusetts.     Boston,  Cong.  Board  of  Publication,  1858. 
Congregational  Quarterly.     20  vols.      Boston,  1859-78. 
Contributions  to  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Cotmecticut ;  prepared  under 

the  Direction  of  the  General  Association.      New    Haven,  William    L. 

Kingsley,  1861.     (Of  great  value.) 
Contributions  to  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Essex  County,  Mass.      Boston, 

Cong.  Board  of  Publication,  1865. 
Ellis,  Arthur  B.,  History  of  the  First  Church  in  Boston.     Boston,  Hall  & 

Whitini:,  iSSi. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY.  xiii 

Xiliis,  George  E.,  The  Puritan  Age  and  Ride  in  the  Colony  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  i62g-i68j.     Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1888. 

Goodwin,  Jolm  A.,  The  Pilgrim  Republic :  An  Historical  Revieza  of  the 
Colony  of  A^ew  Plymouth.      Boston,  Ticknor  &  Co.,  1888. 

Hill,  Hamilton  A.,  History  of  the  Old  South  Church,  Boston.  2  vols. 
Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1890. 

Lawrence,  Robert  F.,  The  Nnu  Hampshire  Churches.  Claremont, 
published  for  the  Author,  1856. 

Ohio  Church  History  Society,  Papers.  Oberlin,  printed  for  the  Society, 
1889-93. 

Parker,  Edwin  P.,  History  of  the  Second  Church  of  Christ  in  Hartford. 
Hartford,  Belknap  &  Warfield,  1892. 

Robbins,  Chandler,  History  of  the  Second  C/nirch  in  Boston.  Boston, 
John  Wilson  &  Son,  1852. 

Tracy,  Joseph,  The  Great  Awakening :  A  History  of  the  Revival  of 
Religion  in  the  Time  of  Edwards  and  Whitefield.  Boston,  Tappan  & 
Dennet,  1842. 

Trumbull,  Benjamin,  A  Complete  History  of  Connecticzit,  Civil  and 
Ecclesiastical.     2  vols.     New  Haven,  Maltby,  Goldsmith  &  Co.,  1818. 

Walker,  George  Leon,  History  of  the  First  Church  in  Hartford.  Hart- 
ford, Brown  &  Gross,  1884. 

"White,  Daniel  A.,  New  England  Congregationalism.  Salem,  no  pub- 
lisher given;  printed  at  Salem  Gazette  Office,  1861. 


THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   BEGINNINGS    OF   CONGREGATIONALISM. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Bible  is  the  religion  of  Protest- 
antism. With  even  more  truth  it  might  be  affirmed  that 
the  Word  of  God  is  the  historic  basis  of  Congregation- 
alism. Yet  neither  of  these  statements  is  exclusive  of 
similar  claims  for  other  branches  of  the  Christian  Church. 
In  a  real  sense  all  are  founded  upon  the  Bible.  But  as 
Protestantism  in  general  has  made  a  peculiar  use  of  the 
Scriptures  and  attached  to  them  a  unique  authority  in  all 
matters  of  doctrine,  so  Congregationalism,  at  least  in  all 
its  earlier  history,  has  attributed  a  regulative  importance 
to  the  directions  of  the  New  Testament  writers  regarding 
church  administration,  and  has  given  a  normal  value  even 
to  their  most  incidental  narratives  of  church  usages,  more 
fully  than  any  other  system  of  ecclesiastical  polity.  What- 
ever stress  is  now  properly  laid,  in  any  estimate  of  the 
claims  of  Congregationalism  to  general  recognition,  on  its 
democratic  simplicity,  on  its  independence  of  state  control, 
its  voluntariness  of  association,  or  its  ready  adaptation  to 
new  surroundings,  is  but  incidental  to  the  one  merit  which 
its  modern  founders  claimed  for  it — that  it  represented 
the  pattern  of  the  primitive  and  apostolic  church,  as  laid 


2  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

down  in  the  New  Testament.  To  understand  how  this 
claim  came  to  be  made,  and  how  the  Congregational  sys- 
tem came  to  be  what  it  is,  it  is  necessary  to  glance  at  the 
attitude  of  the  Reformation  toward  the  Scriptures  and 
toward  church  polity. 

The  great  teachers  of  the  medieval  church  had  uniformly 
held  that  the  Bible  is  the  ultimate  source  of  religious  au- 
thority. But  it  was  not  the  Bible  interpreted  by  the  in- 
dividual. No  thought  fundamental  to  the  Roman  Empire 
had  been  more  impressed  on  the  minds  of  men  than  that 
of  visible,  external  unity — a  unity  finding  expression  in  a 
uniform  system  of  government,  a  uniform  body  of  law,  and 
a  visible,  earthly  head.  This  great  Roman  imperial  con- 
ception had  produced  the  medieval  papacy ;  it  produced 
also  in  the  political  world  the  far  less  efficient,  but  no  less 
assertive.  Holy  Roman  Empire.  For  such  a  body,  char- 
acterized by  such  external  marks  of  unity,  an  authorita- 
tive exposition  of  that  which  it  claimed  as  its  fundamental 
law,  the  Bible,  was  imperatively  necessary.  That  expo- 
sition was  believed  to  be  set  forth  by  the  church  itself, 
speaking  through  tradition,  the  consensus  of  its  fathers  and 
doctors,  the  decrees  of  its  popes,  and  especially  through 
general  councils.  All  these  made  a  mass  of  authority 
which,  though  professedly  subordinate  to  the  Word  of 
God  and  merely  interpretative  of  it,  really,  if  not  theoret- 
ically, put  it  in  the  background;  and  substituted  for  a 
direct  appeal  to  its  prescriptions,  a  mass  of  exposition,  the 
slow  growth  of  centuries,  which  buttressed  an  elaborate  sys- 
tem of  doctrine,  polity,  and  ceremonial,  itself  the  result  of 
gradual  accretion  through  nearly  a  millennium  and  a  half 
of  years. 

Naturally,  with  such  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  unity 
and  such  claims  to  continuity  in  its  explanation  of  the 
divine  message,  the  position  of  the  medieval  church  was 


THE   REFORMATION  AND    THE   BIBLE.  3 

equally  clear  that  for  an  ordinary  uneducated  layman  to 
attempt  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures  was  a  matter 
of  exceeding  peril.  The  medieval  church  felt  that  it  had 
some  justification  for  this  position.  The  sects  with  which 
it  had  struggled,  sometimes  with  very  carnal  weapons,  had 
claimed  to  base  their  departures  from  Roman  obedience 
on  the  warrant  of  the  Scriptures.  The  Waldenses  and 
the  Cathari  had  been  the  source  of  infinite  trouble  to  the 
medieval  church,  and  the  Roman  leaders  felt  that  much 
in  their  beliefs  could  be  traced  to  erroneous  interpreta- 
tions of  the  Bible  by  ignorant  laymen,  a  danger  which 
they  thought  could  only  be  avoided  by  a  careful  restric- 
tion of  its  use  wherever  such  errors  were  prevalent.  So 
it  came  about  that  when  the  great  revolt  against  medieval 
authority  which  is  called  the  Reformation  took  place,  it 
found  the  Bible  bound  about  with  a  web  of  authoritative 
interpretation  which  explained  its  meaning  in  conformity 
with  the  system  against  which  the  Reformation  rebelled 
and  asserted  that  any  other  interpretation  was  illegitimate. 
The  explanation  had  grown  to  be  more  practically  impor- 
tant than  the  Scripture  itself. 

The  early  Reformers  broke  with  this  theory  of  interpre- 
tation altogether.  In  throwing  off  the  sacerdotal  system 
of  the  Roman  Church,  they  asserted  the  right  of  immedi- 
ate access  of  every  believing  soul  to  God,  and  its  capacity 
to  comprehend  the  divine  message.  They  attacked  the 
whole  medieval  hierarchy  as  a  growth  of  middle-men  be- 
tween the- Divine  Spirit  and  the  human  soul,  where  God 
intended  there  should  be  none.  They  rejected  the  whole 
fabric  of  tradition  and  conciliar  definition  by  which  the 
medieval  polity  had  been  supported  as  something  man- 
made  and  fallible.  But  some  final  authority  they  felt 
there  must  be,  some  test  of  religious  truth ;  and  that  they 
found  where  the  church  had  always  asserted  that  it  lay, 


4  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

in  the  Word  of  God.  Yet  just  as  the  medieval  system, 
by  emphasizing  tradition  and  churchly  authority  in  inter- 
pretation, had  really,  though  not  nominally,  minified  the 
Bible,  so  now  the  Reformers,  by  rejecting  the  testimony 
of  the  church  and  the  traditional  views  of  truth,  and  assert- 
ing the  self-explanatory  nature  of  the  Scriptures,  actually 
raised  the  Bible  to  an  authority  in  the  church,  which,  what- 
ever the  theory,  it  had  never  before  possessed,  not  even 
in  the  earliest  centuries.  Whether  this  extreme  assertion 
of  biblical  authority  was  undue  or  not  is  not  here  the  ques- 
tion ;  but  no  one  can  understand  the  early  history  of  Con- 
gregationalism without  recognizing  clearly  the  emphasis 
which  the  Reformers  put  upon  the  Scriptures  as  the  infal- 
lible, complete,  and  self-interpretative  expression  of  the  will 
of  God  and  the  nature  of  his  relations  to  men — a  record  to 
which  no  tradition  could  add  anything,  and  which  by  its 
fullness  excluded  the  necessity  of  any  further  revelation. 

Two  principles  plainly  flowed  from  these  views  of  the 
Reformers,  though  not  recognized  in  their  fullness  of  ap- 
plication by  the  leaders  in  the  reform  movement.  It  is 
evident  that  if  the  Bible  is  a  complete  revelation,  then  all 
that  is  really  essential,  whether  in  belief  or  in  practice, 
must  be  contained  in  it,  and  all  that  cannot  be  found  there 
delineated  is  at  best  a  matter  of  human  judgment  or  con- 
venience, that,  however  useful,  is  in  no  way  essential  to 
the  faith,  organization,  or  ordering  of  the  church.  The 
Bible  must  be  the  only  final  test  of  that  which  God  de- 
signed his  church  to  be  or  to  know.  It  is  no  less  clear, 
that,  granting  the  correctness  of  the  Reformers'  principles, 
it  is  always  right  for  a  man,  or  a  body  of  men,  to  apply 
this  test  to  the  actual  condition  of  any  organization  claim- 
ing to  be  the  church,  and  if  it  be  found  wanting,  to  attempt 
its  alteration  into  conformity  with  the  prescriptions  of  that 
divine  standard. 


THE  REFORMATION  INCOMPLETE.  5 

But  though  these  principles  were  involved  in  the  asser- 
tions of  the  Reformers,  their  full  logical  sweep  was  not  at 
first  evident.  No  great  movement  is  wholly  radical.  The 
past  is  not  swept  away  in  a  moment.  And  tremendous 
as  were  the  changes  which  the  Reformers  introduced,  that 
which  they  left  unchanged  in  the  doctrine  and  organization 
of  the  church  far  exceeded  that  which  was  altered.  In 
the  field  of  Christian  belief,  while  the  battle  raged  with 
fierceness  over  the  problems  of  the  method  of  salvation 
and  the  nature  of  the  sacraments,  the  Reformers  as  a 
whole  accepted  the  faith  of  the  ancient  church  regarding 
the  nature  of  God,  the  person  and  work  of  Christ,  and  even 
the  state  of  man,  without  serious  discussion.  Even  more 
was  this  true  regarding  church  polity.  If  the  Reformers 
altered  that  which  was  chiefly  political  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  church,  or  those  offices  which  seemed  most 
intimately  associated  with  the  sacerdotal  system  against 
which  they  revolted,  they  left  untouched  the  medieval 
theory  that  all  baptized  inhabitants  of  a  Christian  country 
were  church-members  unless  formally  excommunicate,  and 
they  preserved  enough  of  the  ancient  conception  of  visible 
unity  to  hold  that  but  one  form  of  faith  and  worship  was 
to  be  allowed  within  a  given  territory. 

Other  causes  than  these  operated  also  to  make  the  ques- 
tion of  the  proper  polity  of  the  church  a  subordinate  one 
for  the  early  Reformers.  The  brunt  of  the  struggle  was 
at  first  chiefly  doctrinal,  and  naturally  so,  for  purification 
of  doctrine  was  more  important  even  than  the  right  organ- 
ization of  the  church.  Then,  too,  the  early  German  and 
Swiss  Reformers,  Luther,  Melanchthon,  and  Zwingli,  were 
not  organizers ;  and  though  Luther  at  least  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  system  very  like  Congregationalism  in  the 
pages  of  the  New  Testament,  they  all  felt  the  need  of  the 
aid  of  civil  authority  in  their  struggle  with  Rome ;    and, 


6  THE    CONGREGATIONALTSrS.  [Chap.  i. 

partly  because  they  could  in  no  other  way  enlist  the  ser- 
vices of  princes  and  city  magistrates,  partly  because  they 
feared  the  fanatics  whom  the  Reformation  drew  in  its 
train  and  who  threatened  to  bring  the  cause  into  discredit 
if  they  became  dominant,"  these  leaders  in  the  struggle 
allowed  their  churches  to  be  remodeled  and  ruled  by  the 
authority  of  the  state. '  This  condition  of  affairs,  which 
they  hoped  would  be  temporary,  became  the  universal 
rule  in  Europe,  and  has  continued  to  the  present  day. 
Whatever  may  have  been  its  merits  or  its  seeming  necessity 
in  a  time  of  transition,  when  tested  by  the  standard  of  the 
New  Testament  it  is  at  least  as  unwarranted  as  the  system 
which  it  supplanted. 

If  the  German  and  Swiss  Reformers  of  the  first  genera- 
tion failed  thus  to  apply  the  same  Scriptural  test  to  the 
organization  that  they  did,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  church,  this  was  even  more  the  case  in  England. 
There  the  Reformation  was  undisguisedly  political  in  its 
character  at  first,  and  even  doctrinal  reform  had  to  win  its 
way  slowly.  Under  the  reigns  of  successive  sovereigns 
of  the  house  of  Tudor  the  Church  of  England  became  in 
turn  Anglican,  Protestant,  Catholic,  and  again  Anglican; 
and  at  each  alteration  of  the  constitution  the  transition  to 
the  new  form  was  made  as  easy  as  possible  for  clergy  and 
people  by  the  retention  of  offices  and  much  of  ceremonial 
which  had  marked  the  organization  of  the  English  Church 
for  a  thousand  years.  At  each  transition,  too,  clergy  and 
people  were  expected  by  the  government  to  acquiesce  in 
the  new  revolution  at  least  outwardly ;  and  that  this  ac- 
quiescence should  be  more  easily  obtained,  little  strenuous 
inquiry  was  made  as  to  the  spiritual  character  or  actual 
beliefs  of  the  ministers  and  members  of  the  Establishment. 
In  doctrines  the  English  Church  at  last  came  to  be  fully 
Protestant,  but  its  terms  of  membership  were  unchanged 


CALVIN'S    WORK.  7 

and  its  offices  remained  substantially  and  intentionally  un- 
altered, save  that  their  holders  now  looked  with  Erastian 
servility  to  the  king  as  the  sole  source  of  ecclesiastical  ap- 
pointment with  even  greater  dependence  than  they  had 
before  manifested  toward  the  pope.  Certainly  no  one 
could  justly  claim  that  Henry  VIII.,  or  the  government 
that  ruled  in  the  name  of  Edward  VI.,  or  Elizabeth,  in 
giving  a  constitution  to  the  church,  was  moved  by  a  con- 
sideration of  any  pattern  which  might  be  laid  down  in 
the  Word  of  God.  Yet  if  the  Reformation  principle  that 
the  Bible  is  the  sole  rule  of  faith  and  conduct  was  once 
admitted,  there  could  be  no  logical  halting-point  either  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  or  in  England  before  the  inquiry 
had  been  diligently  made  whether  the  organization  of  the 
church  and  its  forms  of  worship  were  not  matters  of  divine 
revelation  as  truly  as  its  doctrine.  The  Reformation  could 
not  be  stopped  at  the  point  where  political  expediency 
tried  to  limit  it,' 

This  tendency  of  the  Reformation  to  go  further  in  the 
direction  of  a  logical  carrying  out  of  its  principles  than  the 
position  taken  by  its  first  leaders  was  manifested  in  the 
guiding  spirit  of  its  second  stage — Calvin ;  though  he  too 
failed  to  apply  the  Reformation  test  in  its  fullness  to  the 
organization  and  membership  of  the  church.  But  Calvin 
went  far  beyond  Luther  and  Zwingli.  He  was  an  organ- 
izer by  nature ;  his  personality  dominated  the  small  com- 
munity, Geneva,  in  which  his  work  was  done,  so  that  he 
had  freer  scope  to  carry  his  views  into  practice  than 
Luther  would  have  enjoyed  had  Luther  possessed  his  or- 
ganizing ability.  And  Calvin,  too,  felt  strongly  that  the 
Bible  should  be  regulative  of  the  pattern  and  order  of  the 
church  in  a  general  way,  even  if  he  did  not  make  it  ex- 
clusively formative.  His  Genevan  church  thus  approxi- 
mated far  more  nearly  to  the  New  Testament  conception 


8  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

than  that  of  the  English  political  reformers  or  of  Luther, 
while  it  did  not  fully  or  exclusively  submit  itself  to  the 
biblical  test.  Thus  Calvin  went  a  long  way  toward  the 
position  of  Congregationalism  when  he  held  that  ministers 
were  to  be  approved  by  the  congregations  whom  they 
were  to  serve,  instead  of  being  appointed  by  spiritual 
superiors,  sovereigns,  or  patrons ;  and  when  he  committed 
the  government  of  churches  not  to  a  clerical  order  but 
to  elderships,  composed  of  ministers  and  laymen.  These 
were  long  steps  in  the  direction  of  a  more  logical  applica- 
tion of  the  Reformation  test,  and  they  w^ere  to  be  pro- 
foundly influential  in  the  ecclesiastical  development  of 
English  Puritanism,  out  of  which  most  of  the  early  Con- 
gregationalists  were  to  come.  But  Calvin  admitted  that 
certain  features  of  his  system  were  based  primarily  on 
expediency,  and  he  retained  the  conception  of  the  church 
as  an  institution  practically  coterminous  with  the  state, 
though  independent  in  government,  having  all  baptized 
citizens  of  respectable  lives  as  its  members,  and  whose 
discipline  is  to  be  enforced  by  state  authority. 

But  while  the  chief  of  the  early  leaders  of  the  Refor- 
mation thus  only  partially  carried  out  their  principles,  and 
the  churches  which  they  founded  thus  took  up  into  their 
organization,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  elements  foreign 
to  the  New  Testament,  or  at  least  not  illustrated  in  the 
New  Testament  churches,  some  who  were  touched  by  the 
Reformation  at  its  beginning  were  more  radical  and  con- 
sistent. Whether  it  be  true,  as  Ludwig  Keller  has  asserted 
but  hardly  proved,  that  these  completer  Reformers  were 
representatives  of  the  more  evangelical  medieval  sects,  like 
the  Waldenses,  which  had  continuously  opposed  Roman 
claims,  it  is  certain  that  the  movements  initiated  in  Ger- 
many and  in  Switzerland  by  Luther  and  Zwingli  were 
speedily  disturbed  by  the  preaching  of  a  class  of  teachers 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  g 

nicknamed  the  "  Anabaptists,"  from  their  limitation  of 
the  baptismal  rite  to  believers  of  adult  years — a  doc- 
trine which  seemed  to  the  Lutherans  and  Zwinglians  an 
insistence  on  "  re-baptism,"  since  they,  in  common  with 
all  others  born  under  the  rule  of  the  medieval  church, 
had  been  baptized  in  infancy.  Doubtless  the  fanatical 
exhorters  of  Wittenberg  and  Zwickau,  whose  words  and 
deeds  induced  Luther  to  leave  the  protection  of  the  Wart- 
burg  castle  in  1522  to  preach  against  them,  were  repre- 
sentatives of  the  same  radical  tendency ;  but  the  "  Ana- 
baptist "  tenets  were  more  fully  and  more  nobly  developed 
in  Zurich,  the  scene  of  the  activities  of  the  Swiss  Reformer. 
Here,  under  the  lead  of  Grebel,  Blaurock,  Hiibmaier,  and 
others,  a  party  of  considerable  size  developed,  which  in- 
sisted that  the  close  connection  of  church  and  state  en- 
couraged by  the  leading  Reformers  was  wholly  wrong, 
and  which  attacked  the  reformations  of  Luther  and  Zwingli 
as  but  half-hearted  and  incomplete.  These  men  were  as 
obnoxious  to  the  Protestant  as  to  the  Catholic  civil  au- 
thorities, and  were  at  once  objects  of  persecution  in  every 
quarter.  Attacked  by  the  government  of  Ziirich  in  1525, 
the  effect  of  this  attempt  at  their  suppression  was  the 
rapid  diffusion  of  their  sentiments  throughout  Switzer- 
land, Germany,  and  the  Netherlands,  while  by  1535  they 
had  extended  to  England  and  soon  after  appeared  in  Italy. 
By  the  Catholics  and  the  Anglicans  they  were  burned,  by 
the  continental  Protestants  they  were  drowned.  There 
was  indeed  a  degree  of  explanation,  though  not  of  excuse, 
for  this  universal  severity  of  treatment  in  the  fanaticism 
which  characterized  many  of  the  Anabaptists,  and  which 
led  them  into  wild  and  sometimes  dangerous  and  immoral 
attempts  to  alter  the  foundations  of  society,  of  which  the 
fantastic  misrule  so  bloodily  brought  to  an  end  at  Miinster 
in   1535   is  the  most  notorious  example.      Like  the  rad- 


lO  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

ical  party  in  all  movements  which  profoundly  stir  men, 
the  Anabaptists  gathered  to  themselves  extremists  of  all 
shades.  To  the  Catholics  they  seemed  odious  as  the  most 
pronounced  illustrations  of  the  tendencies  which  were  lead- 
ing multitudes  away  from  the  ancient  communion ;  to  the 
moderate  Protestants  they  appeared  a  peculiar  menace  as 
likely  to  bring  into  contempt  the  Reformation  cause  and 
forfeit  the  support  of  those  worldly  powers  whose  aid 
seemed  to  the  leading  Reformers  well-nigh  indispensable. 

But  though  the  fanatical  Anabaptists  caught  the  public 
eye,  they  were  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  party.  The 
vast  majority  were  earnest,  sober,  God-fearing  rnen  and 
women,  who  came  chiefly  from  the  lower  ranks  of  society, 
and  whose  prevailing  ignorance  led  them  to  many  diverse 
and  fanciful  interpretations  of  Scripture,  and  much  over- 
confidence  in  direct  illuminations  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  but 
who  sincerely  sought  to  pattern  life  and  worship  upon 
the  Word  of  God.  Especially  was  this  true  of  those  of 
the  Anabaptists  who  came  under  the  influence  of  Menno 
Simons,  and  who  bore  from  their  discipleship  the  popular 
name  of  Mennonites — a  body  which  was  strongly  repre- 
sented in  Holland,  where  it  obtained  from  William  the 
Silent  in  1575-77  the  first  toleration  granted  to  Anabap- 
tists by  any  European  government. 

Though  the  Anabaptists,  unlike  the  Lutherans,  Angli- 
cans, and  Calvinists,  had  no  creeds  that  were  generally 
recognized  as  binding  on  all  local  congregations,  and  though 
there  was  necessarily  great  variety  in  opinion  among  them, 
their  main  principles  are  readily  discernible.  First  of  all 
they  drew  a  broad  line  of  distinction  between  those  who 
were  experimental  Christians  and  those  who  were  not. 
Instead  of  the  general  inclusiveness  which  swept  all  the 
inhabitants  of  a  city  or  a  state  into  the  church — an  in- 
clusiveness which  characterized  the  systems  of  the  great 


ANABAPTIST  PRINCIPLES.  1 1 

Reformers  as  well  as  that  of  Rome — they  held  that  only 
Christian  believers  constitute  the  church.  Of  that  church 
and  of  all  religious  life  the  Bible  is  the  only  ultimate  law. 
Human  enactments  have  their  value  for  the  maintenance 
of  unregenerate  civil  society  and  the  control  of  the  vicious, 
but  the  supreme  test  of  every  man-made  statute  is  its 
conformity  to  the  Word  of  God.  Only  when  his  com- 
mands are  not  contrary  to  the  precepts  of  Scripture  is 
obedience  due  to  the  civil  magistrate.  That  magistrate 
has  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  church,  for  the  rule  of 
its  spiritual  communion  is  the  Word  of  God,  and  not  his 
law ;  nor  should  Christians  hold  civil  office,  since  such 
worldly  posts  of  power,  though  divinely  permitted  for  the 
best  good  of  a  society  still  consisting  in  large  measure  of 
unregenerate  persons,  are  not  appointed  as  part  of  the 
government  of  the  church,  nor  are  the  laws  of  their  ad- 
ministration the  statutes  of  Christ's  kingdom.  God  alone, 
and  not  the  civil  ruler,  appoints  what  the  Christian  is  to 
believe  and  practice  in  all  spiritual  concerns. 

This  church,  they  affirmed,  consists  of  the  congregations 
of  professed  disciples  of  Christ  scattered  throughout  the 
world.  __  Admission  to  it  is  obtained  by  baptism,  conse- 
quent upon  repentance  and  faith ;  and  hence  the  Anabap- 
tists maintained,  like  their  spiritual  offspring,  the  modern 
Baptists,  that  this  rite  was  designed  exclusively  for  adults 
— a  contention  in  which  English  and  American  Congrega- 
tionalism, with  a  keener  sense  of  the  covenant  relation  of 
the  Christian  family  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  has  been 
unable  to  follow  them.  Of  this  church  the  Lord  Jesus  is 
the  only  head ;  and  its  congregations  enjoy  the  ministry, 
sacraments,  doctrines,  and  discipline  which  he  has  ap- 
pointed. Its  officers  are  to  be  chosen  by  the  congregation 
to  whom  they  minister,  and  ordained  at  the  hands  of  its 
elders,  with  confidence  that  the  Holy  Spirit  will  guide  his 


12  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

people  in  the  selection,  if  made  with  fasting  and  prayer. 
The  offenses  of  its  membership  are  to  be  redressed  by  ad- 
monition and  excommunication  by  the  congregation.  An 
uncritical  literalness  of  interpretation  of  the  commands  of 
Christ  induced  the  Anabaptists  in  general  to  forbid  judicial 
oaths,  the  bearing  of  arms,  or  recompense  for  ministerial 
services. 

Here  was  a  conception  of  the  organization,  duties,  and 
ministry  of  the  church  very  different  from  that  enter- 
tained in  the  state  establishments  founded  by  the  leading 
Reformers,  and  characterized,  in  spite  of  all  oddities  and 
local  differences,  by  a  sincere  desire  to  pattern  its  organi- 
zation and  government  on  the  Word  of  God.  Further- 
more, we  find  this  attempt  leading  everywhere  to  the 
thought  of  the  church  as  a  collection  of  local  bodies  of 
Christian  people  in  some  sense  separate  from  the  world, 
ruled  by  divinely  appointed  laws,  capable  of  choosing  their 
own  officers,  and  administering  their  own  affairs  without 
interference  from  the  state.  It  was  a  conception  naturally 
repugnant  to  the  mass  of  men  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
for  they  had  not  outgrown  the  idea  ingrained  into  thought 
by  over  a  thousand  years  of  teaching  that  the  church  is  a 
body  marked  by  external  unity — if  not  the  unity  of  an 
undivided  Christendom  which  the  Reformation  had  de- 
stroyed, at  least  by  uniformity  of  creed  and  worship  within 
a  given  territory — a  uniformity  maintained  by  the  state, 
and  binding  on  all  its  citizens  as  members  of  the  state 
church.  It  was  repugnant  also  to  governments,  since 
it  denied  to  them  a  much-cherished  prerogative  and 
markedly  limited  their  powers,  while  it  encouraged  dem- 
ocratic tendencies  at  variance  with  the  prevailing  spirit 
of  sixteenth-century  political  theories.  Hence,  had  the 
radical  Reformers  been  less  feared  for  their  frequent  doc- 
trinal vagaries  than  they  really  were,  their  views  would 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION.  13 

have  been  slow  in  winning  favor  during  the  Reformation 
period. 

The  influences  and  parties  which  have  just  been  con- 
sidered were  continental,  not  English.  But  the  same 
divergent  tendencies  were  to  be  apparent  in  the  English 
Reformation,  and  the  influence  of  some  of  these  conti- 
nental parties  was  to  be  largely  formative  in  that  move- 
ment. Owing  in  part  to  the  caution  with  which  the  English 
mind  accepts  changes,  whether  in  religion  or  in  politics  ;  to 
its  Mdllingness  to  adopt  compromise  even  if  compromise  is 
not  wholly  logical ;  and  in  part  also  to  the  political  char- 
acter of  the  early  history  of  the  English  Reformation  and 
the  opposition  of  the  sovereigns  to  its  more  radical  as- 
pects, the  movement  advanced  far  more  slowly  in  England 
than  on  the  Continent.  It  was  in  a  true  sense  a  period  of 
reHgious  education,  as  well  as  of  change,  for  the  Enghsh 
people.  This  slowness  had  its  advantages  both  politically 
and  religiously.  The  nation  as  a  whole  had  hardly  been 
removed  from  Catholicism  under  Henry  VIII.,  save  that 
it  preferred  English  autonomy  to  submission  to  a  foreign 
pope.  It  had  learned  something  under  the  rule  of  the 
counselors  of  Edward  VI.,  though  the  people  in  general 
regarded  their  violently  Protestantizing  measures  with 
aversion.  But  it  viewed  the  equally  arbitrary  Catholic 
rule  of  Mary  with  yet  greater  dislike,  and  by  the  accession 
of  Elizabeth  it  was  convinced  that  Protestantism  was  more 
desirable  than  Catholicism.  The  cautious  and  intentionally 
compromising  policy  of  Elizabeth's  early  reign  had  one 
merit  at  least — it  continued  the  development  of  the  English 
people  toward  Protestantism  without  serious  risk  of  violent 
Catholic  reaction ;  it  was  not  till  the  Protestantism  of  the 
nation  had  passed  the  half-way  position  of  the  queen  that 
she  became  a  drag  on  English  religious  growth.  This 
slow  development  saved  England  the  bitter  civil  conflicts 


14  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

which  desolated  some  of  the  continental  lands  during  the 
Reformation  period,  and  it  also  had  an  effect  upon  the 
religious  life  of  the  nation  which  was  ultimately,  though 
not  immediately,  beneficial.  A  generation  passed  away 
before  the  transition  of  the  land  from  the  Roman  obedience 
of  the  early  years  of  Henry  VIII.  to  the  very  moderate 
Protestantism  of  Elizabeth  had  been  accomplished.  All 
this  time  English  religious  institutions  were  in  flux,  doc- 
trinal standards  were  being  established  looking  first  in  one 
direction  and  then  in  the  other,  the  thoughts  of  men  were 
exercised  with  religious  problems  without  long  being  cast 
in  the  mold  of  any  one  governmentally  imposed  system. 
At  the  same  time  no  single  leader,  such  as  dominated  the 
Reformation  of  Germany,  Switzerland,  or  even  Scotland, 
arose  in  the  English  Church.  The  result  was  that  the 
people  of  England  came — in  a  dim  way,  it  is  true — to 
think  for  themselves  on  religious  problems  more  generally 
than  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries  of  the  Continent 
where  the  Reformation  was  more  rapid  in  its  introduction. 
Though  the  real  spiritual  awakening  of  the  people  was  not 
manifest  till  Puritanism  had  carried  its  work  well  into  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  the  hold  which  that  movement  took 
upon  the  English  people  was  in  no  small  measure  due 
to  the  fact  that  for  the  first  three  decades  of  the  English 
Reformation  the  Bible  was  studied  by  widening  circles  of 
thoughtful  men,  while  the  government  spoke  with  chang- 
ing voice. 

But  while  this  delay  and  change  which  marked  the  prog- 
ress of  the  English  Reformation  doubtless  worked  good 
in  the  outcome  in  that  it  made  a  wider  and  deeper  and 
freer  religious  life  eventually  possible  than  would  have 
been  the  case  had  the  people  passed  through  a  less  tedious 
education,  this  slowness  of  development  was  a  source  of 
profound  grief  to  the  leaders  in  the  Protestant  movement 


THE   EARLY  PURITANS.  1 5 

in  that  land.  From  the  first  they  labored  to  bring  the 
Church  of  England  to  the  degree  of  Protestantism  illus- 
trated in  the  state  churches  of  the  Continent.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  English  Reformation  the  German  theolo- 
gians of  the  school  of  Luther  had  the  sympathy  of  English 
Protestants,  but  by  the  time  that  the  second  prayer-book 
of  Edward  VI.  was  issued,  in  1552,  the  influence  of  Calvin 
had  become  more  powerful  in  the  doctrinal  thought  of  the 
English  Reformers  than  that  of  the  Lutherans.  Thence- 
forward, till  the  incoming  of  Arminian  theories  in  the  reign 
of  James  I.,  all  parties  among  English  Protestants  were 
Calvinists  in  theology.  This  desire  to  conform  the  Church 
of  England  to  the  Genevan  model,  which  was  already  felt 
under  the  nominal  rule  of  Edward  VI.,  was  greatly,  though 
indirectly,  stimulated  by  the  persecutions  of  Mary.  The 
more  earnest  Protestants  fled  from  England  to  the  Conti- 
nent, preferring  exile  to  conformity  to  Catholicism.  There 
they  found  a  welcome  in  Switzerland  and  in  the  Calvinis- 
tic  portions  of  Germany,  though  not  much  favor  from  the 
Lutherans ;  and  on  the  death  of  Mary  they  returned  to 
England  filled  with  admiration  not  only  for  the  doctrine 
but  for  the  polity  and  forms  of  worship  of  Calvinism,  which 
they  wished  to  introduce  into  their  home  land  in  Genevan 
fullness.  Elizabeth  had  no  sympathy  with  this  aim ;  but 
she  needed  men  for  places  of  prominence  in  her  ecclesias- 
tical Establishment  who  could  be  trusted  to  oppose  Catholic 
plots  and  strengthen  Protestantism,  and  of  such  men  the 
Marian  exiles  were  the  most  conspicuous.  So  it  came 
about  that,  in  spite  of  her  own  preferences,  Elizabeth  was 
forced  to  give  prominence  in  the  English  Church,  at  the 
beginning  of  her  reign,  to  men  who  desired  a  much  more 
radical  Protestantizing  of  the  ceremonials  and  liturgy  of 
that  body  than  found  favor  in  her  eyes. 

To  these  Protestants  of  the  more  earnest  type,  the  most 


16  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS,  [Chap.  I. 

serious  objection  to  the  Church  of  England  at  the  beginning 
of  EHzabeth's  reign  was  not  any  fault  in  doctrine ;  they 
agreed  fully  in  its  prevailing  Calvinism.  Nor  did  they  at 
first  oppose  its  retention  of  bishops.  In  fact,  the  Reformers 
as  a  whole  had  no  dislike  to  an  episcopal  rank  in  the  ministry, 
at  least  as  administrators  of  church  government,  though  cir- 
cumstances prevented  its  retention  in  most  of  the  churches 
which  they  founded  on  the  Continent.  Even  Calvin  ad- 
vised the  King  of  Poland  to  continue  the  episcopal  ofifice 
in  that  land.  Melanchthon  thought  bishops  desirable  as 
a  means  of  establishing  good  order  in  the  church.  But 
none  of  the  Reformers  conceived  of  bishops  as  possessed 
of  spiritual  powers  superior  to  those  of  other  ministers. 
It  was  as  administrative  posts  that  the  Protestants  of  the 
early  reign  of  Elizabeth  were  willing  to  see  the  episcopal 
office  continued.  Nor  did  these  Protestants  at  first  object 
to  the  control  of  the  state  over  the  church — they  accepted 
office  from  the  hand  of  government  without  reluctance. 
Their  opposition  was  directed  in  the  beginning  against 
none  of  these  things,  but  against  the  retention  of  certain 
vestments  and  ceremonies  which  seemed  to  them  to  savor 
of  the  Roman  liturgy.  Thus,  the  cap  and  surplice  were 
reminders  of  the  old  priestly  garb  which  had  seemed  to 
make  broad  the  line  of  distinction  between  the  clergyman 
and  the  layman.  So,  too,  the  use  of  the  cross  as  a  sym- 
bol, the  employment  of  the  ring  in  marriage,  and  kneeling 
at  the  reception  of  the  sacrament,  seemed  to  these  Prot- 
estants acts  fitted  to  perpetuate  the  misuse  of  the  sign  of 
the  Saviour's  passion,  to  encourage  the  thought  of  marriage 
as  a  sacrament,  and  the  conception  of  the  Supper  as  a 
transubstantiation  of  the  elements  into  the  very  body  and 
blood  of  Christ,  against  which  all  Protestants  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic  school  set  their  faces.  These  were  in  themselves 
acts  of  little  moment — the  battle-flag  is  seldom  of  much 


THE  EARLY  PURITANS.  I  7 

intrinsic  importance — but  they  symbolized  much,  and  no 
one  recognized  their  significance  more  clearly  than  Eliza- 
beth. Their  retention  meant  the  continuance  of  that  policy 
by  which  the  admission  of  Catholics  into  the  Church  of 
England  was  rendered  easy — a  policy  which  had  so  much 
politically  to  commend  it.  Their  abolition  would  signify 
the  full  Protestantizing  of  the  Anglican  body,  as  Protest- 
antism was  understood  in  the  Calvinistic  churches  of  the 
Continent,  and  the  abandonment  of  the  policy  which  made 
it  a  half-way  house  on  the  roadway  of  reform.  As  early 
as  1550,  under  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  Hooper,  the 
bishop-elect  of  Gloucester,  had  denounced  the  prescribed 
vestments.  The  more  earnest  Protestants  at  the  begin- 
ning of  Elizabeth's  reign,  like  Grindal,  Sandys,  and  Jewel 
of  the  high  clergy,  and  Burghley  and  Walsingham  of  the 
statesmen,  were  also  their  opponents.  But  Elizabeth  was 
determined  in  her  ecclesiastical  policy;  and  on  this  point 
she  had  the  sympathy  of  that  large  party  in  the  kingdom 
whose  affection  for  the  abolished  Catholic  worship  contin- 
ued, and  who  wished  to  make  as  few  departures  from  it 
as  were  consistent  with  obedience  to  the  law.  In  opposi- 
tion to  the  desires  of  the  more  earnest  Protestants,  she 
insisted  on  the  enforcement  of  her  ecclesiastical  regulations. 
Thus  there  arose  in  the  hosom  of  the  Church  of  England, 
at  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  two  pari- 
ties, one  of  which,  from  its  desire  to  purify  the  church 
from  remnants  of  Roman  usage,  was  nicknamed  "  Puri- 
tan " ;  and  the  other  of  which,  marked  by  a  wish  to  main- 
tain churchly  usages  in  the  compromise  condition  in  which 
they  were,  and  to  support  the  royal  supremacy  in  order 
to  that  end,  may,  for  want  of  a  more  descriptive  title,  be 
styled  "Anglican." 

The  problem  with  which  the   Church   of  England  was 
confronted  at  this  juncture  was  of  the  most  serious  char- 


l8  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

acter.  A  mass  of  clergy  and  people,  swept  five  years 
before  by  government  edict  out  of  nominal  Protestant- 
ism back  to  their  original  Catholicism,  had  now  been  car- 
ried over  to  Protestantism  again.  The  incumbents  of  the 
higher  offices  of  the  church  had  been  generally  changed ; 
but  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  parish  ministers  of 
the  new  order  of  affairs  were  the  same  who  had  served 
under  Mary ;  and  they  were  generally  ignorant,  unable 
to  preach,  often  incapable  of  setting  a  worthy  example  of 
Christian  living  to  their  congregations.  In  place  of  this  in- 
efficient body  of  clergy  the  Puritans  were  anxious  to  estab- 
lish an  educated,  spiritually-minded,  and  zealous  ministry. 
It  is  no  unjust  criticism  of  the  Anglicans  to  say  that  they 
were  not  so  alive  to  the  spiritual  necessities  of  the  land ; 
they  were  themselves  very  largely  the  ministry  against 
whose  inefficiency  the  Puritans  protested.  As  far  as  a 
geographical  division  of  England  between  the  two  parties 
may  be  made,  the  south  and  east,  especially  the  vicinity 
of  London  and  the  counties  along  the  North  Sea  from  the 
Thames  to  the  Humber,  may  be  said  to  have  favored  Puri- 
tanism. This  was  the  region  of  England  which  had  most 
welcomed  Wiclif  and  his  laborers,  and  where  the  Reforma- 
tion had  found  most  ready  lodgment  at  its  beginning.  It 
was  the  region  also  from  which  the  strength  of  the  opposi- 
tion to  the  tyranny  of  the  Stuarts  was  to  come,  and  where 
no  small  share  of  the  future  settlers  of  New  England  had 
their  home.  It  was  no  accident,  therefore,  that  made  the 
more  eastern  of  the  two  English  universities,  that  of  Cam- 
bridge, the  home  of  Puritanism  almost  from  the  beginning 
of  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  the  training-school  not  only  of 
the  most  strenuous  Protestantism  of  the  home  land,  but 
of  most  of  the  early  New  England  divines. 

The  opposition  of  the  authorities  of  the  English  Church, 
under  the  impulse  of  the  queen,  to  the  modifications  de- 


THOMAS   CARTWRIGHT.  1 9 

sired  by  the  Puritans,  led  to  a  second  stage  in  Puritan 
development,  and  one  much  more  radical  in  its  departure 
from  the  polity  of  the  Establishment  than  that  just  con- 
sidered. The  forcible  retention  of  vestments  and  cere- 
monies which  the  growing  Protestantism  of  the  reform 
party  increasingly  condemned  soon  led  to  questionings  as 
to  whether  the  system  itself  which  permitted  their  reten- 
tion was  that  divinely  intended  as  the  normal  polity  of  the 
church ;  some  Puritans  no  longer  criticised  rites  and  gar- 
ments, they  began  to  examine  the  constitution  of  the  English 
Establishment  in  its  fundamental  principles.  Naturally,  the 
test  by  which  they  judged  it  was  largely  borrowed  from 
Geneva.  The  leader  in  this  second  stage  of  Puritanism 
was  Thomas  Cartwright.  Born  in  1535,  he  was  identified 
with  the  University  of  Cambridge  from  the  year  1547,  and 
as  student,  fellow,  and  teacher  contributed  more  than  any 
other  Englishman  toward  making  that  seminary  a  strong- 
hold of  Calvinism.  His  greatest  prominence  came  in  1569, 
when  he  became  Lady  Margaret  professor  of  divinity  in 
his  university ;  but  this  post  of  influence  exposed  him  to 
the  immediate  attack  of  the  Anglicans,  of  whom  the  most 
prominent  was  John  Whitgift,  the  later  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury. By  this  opposition  Cartwright  was  compelled  to 
abandon  his  professorship  in  December,  1570,  and  in  Sep- 
tember, 15 7 1,  he  was  driven  from  his  fellowship;  thence- 
forward, till  his  death,  in  1603,  to  be  a  sufTerer  for  his 
belief. 

This  dispute,  centering  in  the  university  which  best  rep- 
resented the  advancing  Protestantism  of  the  nation,  made 
Cartwright  the  leader  of  the  Puritan  party,  and  impressed 
his  views  on  his  followers.  He  had  gained  from  Calvin 
the  conception  of  the  church  as  independent  of  the  state 
in  administration — a  theory  toward  which  governmental 
opposition  had  been  forcing  the  whole  Puritan  party.      He 


20  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  church  poHty  is  taught 
authoritatively  in  the  Scriptures,  and  that  no  church  could 
be  truly  reformed  till  its  government  was  adjusted  to  the 
biblical  model.  He  had  learned  from  Geneva  also  a  faith 
in  the  efificacy  of  discipline  to  remedy  the  spiritual  imper- 
fections with  which  the  unquestioning  retention  of  the 
whole  Catholic  population  of  England  in  Elizabeth's  Es- 
tablishment had  filled  the  membership  of  the  church.  He 
had  come  to  the  belief  that  the  system  of  diocesan  episco- 
pacy was  no  part  of  the  divine  model,  and  ought  at  least 
to  be  essentially  modified.  He  was  convinced  that  the 
people  of  each  parish  should  have  a  share  in  the  selection 
of  its  ministers.  These  principles  were  in  radical  contra- 
vention of  the  Elizabethan  theory  of  the  government  of 
the  church  by  officers  of  royal  appointment  and  by  laws 
imposed  by  the  sovereign ;  no  real  compromise  between 
them  and  the  Anglican  theory  was  possible.  Elizabeth 
and  the  Anglican  party  generally  saw  their  threatening 
character,  and  the  power  of  the  government  was  there- 
fore set  in  yet  more  determined  opposition  to  the  Puritan 
cause. 

But  though  Cartwright  moved  thus  with  firm  tread  in 
the  direction  in  which  Calvin  had  led  the  way,  and  per- 
haps went  a  little  further  than  Calvin,  he  retained  most  of 
Calvin's  limitations  also,  and  in  his  merits  and  shortcom- 
ings alike  he  represented  the  whole  Puritan  movement  in 
which  he  was  so  conspicuous  a  leader.  From  the  time  of  his 
expulsion  from  Cambridge  down  to  the  civil  war  that  party 
largely  walked  in  his  footsteps — the  Presbyterian  Puritans, 
always  a  majority  of  the  body,  did  so  always.  Like 
Calvin,  Cartwright  held  to  the  conception  of  a  National 
Church,  of  which  all  baptized  and  non-excommunicate 
inhabitants  of  England  were  members.      Like  Calvin,  he 


LIMITATIONS   OF  PURITANISM.  2  1 

believed  that  this  vast  assemblage  of  the  good  and  bad 
was  to  be  trained  and  purified  by  the  labors  of  ministers 
of  the  Scripture  designation  and  the  enforcement  of  an 
active,  searching  discipline  by  the  officers  of  each  congre- 
gation and  district.  Like  Calvin,  he  believed  it  the  duty 
of  the  magistrate  to  aid  the  church  by  repressing  heresy 
and  compelling  uniformity,  though  it  was  only  in  the  path 
designated  in  the  Word  of  God  that  the  magistrate  could 
rightfully  compel  men  to  go.  That  that  path  should  not 
appear  the  same  to  all  really  good  men  was  a  thought 
which  the  Puritan  did  not  readily  entertain.  The  national 
Church  of  England  seemed  to  Cartwright  too  sacred  an 
institution  for  men  to  separate  from  without  peril  of  schism, 
and  he  relied  on  the  civil  government,  which  had  already 
carried  it  over  from  Catholicism  to  Anglicanism,  to  effect 
its  alteration,  as  a  whole,  once  again  into  Presbyterian  Puri- 
tanism. Therefore,  in  Cartwright's  view,  the  work  of  a 
Christian  man  desirous  of  bringing  the  English  Church 
into  conformity  to  the  Scripture  model  was  to  agitate, 
labor,  argue,  and  try  to  move  the  government  to  effect 
the  change ;  to  introduce,  as  far  as  he  was  able  and  the 
government  would  permit,  the  worship  and  discipline  of 
Geneva,  in  order  to  raise  the  inert  mass  of  the  all-inclusive 
membership  of  the  Establishment ;  to  encourage  earnest, 
educated,  spiritual-minded  ministers ;  but  on  no  account 
to  withdraw  from  the  national  religious  body.  It  was  a 
theory  that  required  for  its  successful  establishment  the 
conversion  of  the  dominant  forces  of  England  to  its  sup- 
port, and  though  that  conversion  seemed  in  Cartwright's 
time  exceedingly  probable,  and  under  the  concurrent  influ- 
ence of  opposition  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Stuart  sovereigns 
was  temporarily  brought  about  during  the  parliamentary 
struggles  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  never  per- 


22  THE    C0NGREGATI0AL4LISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

manently  accomplished.  Moreover,  the  views  which  Cart- 
wright  impressed  on  the  Puritan  party,  Hke  those  of  Calvin, 
had  the  two  great  defects  of  an  unspiritual  theory  of  church- 
membership  and  an  unscriptural  intimacy  of  relation  to  the 
state.  As  Elizabethan  Anglicanism  was  a  half-way  house 
between  Catholicism  and  full  Protestantism,  so  Puritanism 
was  a  halting-place  between  Anglicanism  and  Congrega- 
tionalism. It  was  to  be  the  training-school  of  early  Eng- 
lish Congregationalists ;  but  it  could  not  be  permanent, 
for  it  was  intermingled  with  elements  inconsistent  with  a 
logical  application  of  its  own  principles. 

The  Puritan  movement  grew  rapidly  in  strength  as 
Elizabeth's  reign  advanced;  especially  after  the  death  of 
Mary  of  Scotland,  in  1587,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish 
Armada,  in  1588,  relieved  the  fear  of  Catholic  interven- 
tion, which  had  united,  in  a  measure,  all  opponents  of  the 
papacy.  The  one  great  book  of  Englisli  reading  became 
the  Bible,  and  to  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  more 
earnest  Protestants  the  Bible  taught  the  Puritan  lesson. 
Men  full  of  new  enthusiasm  for  the  unfettered  Word  of 
God  cared  little  for  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  the  opin- 
ions of  the  councils  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centu- 
ries, or  what  is  now  called  the  "  historic  continuity  "  of  the 
church.  To  their  thinking,  God  had  made  a  plain  revela- 
tion of  his  will,  and  all  that  did  not  evidently  conform  to 
that  message,  however  ancient  or  of  whatever  generality 
of  usage,  was  an  insult  to  the  divine  Law-giver. 

But  as  Puritanism  advanced  and  became  more  dogmatic, 
Anglicanism  advanced  also.  The  Anglicans  of  the  open- 
ing years  of  Elizabeth's  reign  had  found  the  chief  warrant 
for  the  existence  of  diocesan  episcopacy  in  the  preference 
of  the  sovereign  for  that  form  of  church  government. 
They  were  willing  freely  to  admit  the  true  churchly  char- 
acter of   an   ecclesiastical    organization   unprovided   with 


ADVANCE   OF  ANGLICANISM.  23 

bishops.  But  the  growing  Puritan  criticism  of  prelacy  led 
the  Anglicans  more  and  more  into  its  defense.  Whitgift, 
Cartwright's  opponent  at  Cambridge,  and  from  1583  to 
1604  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  always  one  of  the 
most  violent  of  opponents  of  Puritanism,  did  not  venture 
to  assert  more  than  that  episcopacy  was  the  most  ancient 
and  desirable  type  of  organization.  He  used  language 
that  certainly  allowed  the  inference  that  possibly  other 
forms  of  government  were  more  accordant  with  the  New 
Testament  intimations.  But  by  1589,  in  his  sermon  at 
Paul's  Cross,  Richard  Bancroft,  afterward  to  be  Whitgift's 
successor  in  the  see  of  Canterbury,  declared — a  little  ob- 
scurely, it  is  true — that  episcopacy  is  of  divine  authority. 
This  theory  was  elaborated  by  Thomas  Bilson,  later  Bishop 
of  Worcester,  in  1593,  and  episcopacy  and  apostolic  suc- 
cession were  asserted  to  be  essential  to  the  existence  of 
the  church.  The  careful  Richard  Hooker,  in  his  "  Eccle- 
siasticall  Politie  "  of  1593,  did  not  indeed  go  further  than 
to  affirm  the  superior  antiquity  and  scripturalness  of  epis- 
copacy, while  denying  its  absolute  necessity ;  but  the 
Anglican  party  as  a  whole  moved  in  the  direction  pointed 
out  hy  Bancroft  and  Bilson — a  direction  which  found  its 
complete  exponent  in  William  Laud,  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury from  1633  to  1645,  ^i^d  which  was  the  radical  an- 
tithesis of  Puritanism,  not  only  in  the  stress  which  it  laid 
on  episcopacy,  but  in  its  attitude  toward  those  features  of 
worship  against  which  the  Puritans  protested.  Puritan- 
ism thus  stimulated  its  opposite  tendency  in  the  English 
Church.  The  hostility  between  the  two  parties  thus  be- 
came more  pronounced,  as  their  divergence  became  more 
extreme  throughout  Elizabeth's  reign ;  and  the  queen's 
mighty  influence,  controlling  appointments  to  high  eccle- 
siastical office,  and  largely  determining  the  strictness  or 
laxity  of  the  enforcement  of  uniformity,  was  thrown  fully 


24  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

on  the  side  of  the  Anglicans,  a  little,  it  may  be,  because 
their  growing  high-churchism  appealed  to  her  religious 
taste,  but  chiefly  because  the  views  of  the  Anglican  party 
best  comported  with  her  theories  of  the  royal  supremacy. 
This  largely  political  character  of  Elizabeth's  opposition 
to  Puritan  views  marked  the  whole  Anglican  party.  It 
was  not  merely  religious  opposition  that  embittered  the 
discussion.  It  was  also  the  perception,  dim  at  first,  but 
growing  clearer  all  through  Elizabeth's  reign,  of  the  fact 
which  became  so  patent  in  the  time  of  the  Stuarts,  that 
the  differing  principles  of  the  two  parties  regarding  church 
government  led  also  to  radically  divergent  conceptions  of 
the  relation  of  the  ruler  to  the  state.  In  the  Anglican 
view  the  clergyman  was  either  the  representative  of  the 
sovereign  in  the  religious  administration  of  the  kingdom, 
or,  as  with  the  high-churchmen  who  gradually  arose  in 
the  Anglican  party,  a  member  of  a  divinely  appointed 
order  o\-er  which  the  sovereign  had  a  regulative  control. 
In  neither  phase  of  the  Anglican  theory  was  the  clergy- 
man in  any  way  responsible  to  the  people  to  whom  he 
ministered.  He  looked  to  his  sovereign,  his  ecclesiastical 
superior,  or  to  God,  as  the  only  authority  that  could  take 
cognizance  of  his  acts.  In  actual  practice  the  Anglican 
saw  in  the  king  the  ultimate  source  of  ecclesiastical  power. 
Now  this  conception  of  clerical  responsibility  not  only 
greatly  aided  that  dependence  on  the  sovereign  of  all  the 
ecclesiastical  interests  of  the  land  which  was  dear  to  the 
Tudors  and  Stuarts,  it  gave  to  the  sovereign  himself  a  sta- 
tion which  accorded  him  a  divine  right  to  rule.  A  ruler 
who  was  the  "  supreme  governor"  of  a  church  whose  minis- 
ters owed  no  responsibility  for  their  actions  to  their  flocks, 
was  not  likely  to  be  held  answerable  to  his  people  for  his 
deeds.  If  he  rightfully  appointed  and  controlled  those 
who  were  members  of  a  divinely  constituted  order,  his 


DIVERSE   POLITICAL    THEORIES.  25 

own  power  must  be  of  divine  appointment.  The  tendency 
of  men  to  think  in  political  affairs  as  they  do  in  questions 
of  church  poHty — a  tendency  always  illustrated  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  church — made  the  Anglican  naturally  a  sup- 
porter of  that  Tudor  and  Stuart  view  of  the  royal  author- 
ity, which  held  the  king  answerable  to  God  but  not  to  his 
people. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Puritan  learned  from  Calvinism 
that  the  minister  should  serve  his  congregation  with  their 
consent.  The  Puritan  believed  that  to  the  people,  in  some 
measure  at  least,  belonged  the  right  to  select  their  spiritual 
guides.  Such  right  of  choice  implied  responsibility  to  the 
choosing  power.  The  preacher  was  not  a  royal  agent  or 
a  member  of  a  sacred  order  set  over  a  parish  whose  in- 
habitants had  no  voice  in  his  selection  ;  he  was  a  minister 
whose  leadership  had  been  sought  by  those  whom  he 
served.  Such  a  relation  implied  responsibility  to  his  peo- 
ple— a  certain  measure  of  control  on  their  part  over  him, 
even  if  wholly  undefined.  Then,  too,  the  statute-book 
which  the  Puritan  insisted  should  be  the  ultimate  rule  of 
ecclesiastical  administration  was  something  other  than  the 
laws  of  the  realm.  No  ceremony  or  office  "  by  law  estab- 
lished "  was  right  till  it  accorded  with  the  Word  of  God. 
And  though  the  Puritan  held  that  the  Bible  was  so  plain 
that  all  who  sincerely  read  its  teachings  must  understand 
them  in  the  same  way,  what  he  really  did  was  to  subject 
the  ecclesiastical  statutes  of  the  realm  of  England  to  revi- 
sion in  accordance  with  his  individual  understanding  of  the 
divine  revelation.  This  habit  of  testing  by  the  Word  of 
God  taught  the  Puritan,  as  no  man  of  his  time  was  taught, 
to  think  for  himself.  He  might  be  slow  in  carrying  his 
principles  from  the  realm  of  the  church  to  the  field  of  poli- 
tics ;  but  the  Puritan  could  no  more  avoid  applying  them 
equally  in  both  directions  than  the  Anglican.      It  was  no 


26  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

accident  that  made  the  Puritan  query  whether  a  sovereign 
was  not  responsible  to  his  subjects,  for  his  administration 
of  their  interests,  or  whether  the  royal  acts  and  enact- 
ments should  not  be  justified  by  some  standard  higher 
than  the  kingly  will.  It  was  a  perception  of  this  tendency 
that,  quite  as  much  as  any  religious  antipathy,  roused  the 
hostility  of  the  supporters  of  the  royal  authority  against 
the  Puritan. 

The  influence  of  continental  Calvinism  in  developing  one 
of  the  two  great  parties  within  the  English  Establishment 
has  thus  been  seen  to  have  been  profound.  But  the  de- 
gree in  which  the  more  radical  movements  which  are  now 
to  be  considered  were  dependent  on  impulses  traceable  to 
the  Anabaptists  of  the  Continent  is  far  less  certain.  These 
movements,  springing  up  on  a  soil  made  ready  by  Puritan- 
ism, were  the  source  of  modern  Congregationalism.  In 
many  respects — in  their  abandonment  of  the  State  Church, 
in  their  direct  appeal  to  the  Word  of  God  for  every  detail 
of  administration,  in  their  organization  and  officers — their 
likeness  to  those  of  the  radical  Reformers  of  the  Continent  is 
so  striking  that  some  affiliation  seems  almost  certain.  Nor 
is  the  geographical  argument  for  probable  connection  with 
continental  movements  less  weighty.  These  radical  Eng- 
lish efforts  for  a  complete  reformation  had  their  chief  sup- 
port in  the  eastern  counties,  especially  in  the  vicinity  of 
Norwich  and  of  London.  These  regions  had  long  been 
the  recipient  of  Dutch  immigration ;  and  the  influx  from 
the  Netherlands  had  vastly  increased  during  the  early 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  owing  to  the  tyranny  of  Philip  II.  In 
1562  the  Dutch  and  Walloons  settled  in  England  num- 
bered 30,000.  By  1568  some  5225  of  the  people  of  Lon- 
don were  of  this  immigration;  and  by  1587  they  consti- 
tuted more  than  half  of  the  population  of  Norwich,  while 
they  were  largely  present  in  other  coast  towns.     Now  these 


CONGREGATIONAL   BEGINNINGS.  27 

immigrants  were  chiefly  artisans,  and  among  the  workmen 
of  Holland  Anabaptist  views  were  widely  disseminated ; 
and  while  it  would  be  unjustifiable  to  claim  that  these 
exiles  on  English  soil  were  chiefly,  or  largely,  Anabaptists, 
there  were  Anabaptists  among  them,  and  an  Anabaptist 
way  of  thinking  may  not  improbably  have  been  widely 
induced  among  those  who  may  have  been  entirely  uncon- 
scious of  the  source  from  which  their  impulse  came.  Cer- 
tainly the  resemblances  between  the  Anabaptist  move- 
ments of  the  Continent  and  English  Congregationalism  in 
theories  of  church  polity,  and  the  geographical  possibil- 
ities of  contact  between  the  two,  are  sufficiently  manifest 
to  make  a  denial  of  relationship  exceedingly  difficult. 

But  the  points  of  dissimilarity  between  these  extreme 
English  Protestants  and  the  continental  radicals  are  also 
conspicuous.  They  rejected  doctrines  much  prized  by  the 
Anabaptists,  like  believers'  baptism ;  they  retained  oaths ; 
they  recognized  it  as  the  duty  of  a  Christian,  if  so  re- 
quired, to  serve  the  state  as  a  magistrate  or  a  soldier. 
These  diversities,  combined  with  the  absence  from  their 
writings  of  any  sense  of  indebtedness  to  continental  teach- 
ers, and  the  purely  English  character  of  their  names  as  far 
as  known,  show  that  whatever  they  may  have  gained  from 
the  thought  of  the  Continent  was  indirect  and  unconscious, 
and  that  their  own  work  was  in  a  large  measure  inde- 
pendent. 

The  first  traces  of  a  movement  in  England  which  insisted 
on  a  separation  from  the  Establishment  in  order  to  a  fuller 
reformation,  and  which  thus  went  beyond  Puritanism  in 
the  direction  of  early  CongregationaHsm,  are  found  in  Lon- 
don in  the  year  1567.  Attempts  have  indeed  been  made 
to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  Separatist  churches  under 
the  reign  of  Mary,  but  the  secret  congregations  of  her  time 
seem  to  have  been  simply  persecuted  Protestants  of  the 


28  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

Establishment  as  it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Edward  VI. 
On  June  19,  1567,  however,  the  authorities  brolce  up  an  as- 
sembly of  another  character.  A  body  of  men  and  women 
had  gathered  at  Plumbers'  Hall  in  London  on  that  day, 
ostensibly  to  celebrate  a  wedding,  and  really  with  the 
added  purpose  of  holding  worship  in  what  they  deemed 
a  purer  manner  than  that  of  the  Church  of  England.  The 
inruption  of  the  officers  of  the  law  into  their  little  meeting 
was  followed  by  the  arrest  of  some  fifteen  of  those  pres- 
ent, their  committal  to  prison,  and  their  examination  by 
Edmund  Grindal,  then  the  bishop  of  the  London  diocese. 
By  this  examination  it  appeared  that  this  little  body  re- 
garded the  ceremonies  and  canon  law  of  the  Establishment 
as  evil,  and  had  therefore  organized  for  its  own  worship 
apart  from  the  constituted  parishes  of  the  land.  Other 
papers,  especially  a  petition  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  prepared 
in  1 571  after  their  pastor  and  deacon  had  died  in  prison, 
show  their  views  and  procedure  more  clearly.  In  this 
document  they  style  themselves  "  a  poor  congregation 
whom  God  hath  separated  from  the  churches  of  England, 
and  from  the  mingled  and  false  worshiping  therein  used." 
As  a  church  assembly,  it  furthermore  appears  that  they 
had  at  least  two  officers  of  their  own  selection,  "  our  min- 
ister, Richard  Fitz,  Thomas  Rowland,  deacon  " ;  and  that 
they  "  do  serve  the  Lord  every  Sabbath-day  in  houses, 
and  on  the  fourth  day  in  the  week  we  meet  or  come  to- 
gether weekly  to  use  prayer  and  exercise  discipline  on 
them  which  do  deserve  it,  by  the  strength  and  sure  war- 
rant of  the  Lord's  good  Word,  as  in  Matt,  xviii.   15-18." 

Here  was  a  very  rudimentary  type  of  Congregation- 
alism ;  but  its  advance  beyond  Puritanism  was  decided. 
These  men  and  women  had  evidently  cut  loose  from  the 
idea  of  a  national  church.  They  had  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  they  themselves  could  constitute  a  church  on  the 


CONGREGATIONAL  BEGINNINGS.  29 

Scripture  model.  They  had  chosen  their  officers;  and 
they  had  administered  discipline  apparently  as  the  work 
of  the  whole  congregation,  though  in  regard  to  this  most 
important  particular  the  petition,  as  just  quoted,  is  not  as 
definite  as  could  be  wished.  These  acts,  taken  together, 
certainly  show  that  this  persecuted  body  at  Plumbers'  Hall 
was  groping  after  the  Congregational  ideal.  They  were 
indeed  far  from  its  full  realization.  They  were  a  com- 
pany of  poor,  ignorant  Christians,  trying  to  carry  out  a 
complete  reformation.  They  had  seen  only  a  little  way 
on  the  road  thither;  but  they  had  caught  a  glimpse,  im- 
perfect though  it  was,  of  the  New  Testament  pattern  of 
the  church. 

This  little  London  church  of  which  Fitz  was  minister 
had  no  lasting  influence  and  arrived  at  no  greater  definite- 
ness  of  view.  The  strong  hand  of  government  was  heavy 
upon  it,  its  worship  was  broken  up,  and  after  a  period  of 
suffering  in  the  various  prisons  of  London  which  cost  its 
leaders  their  lives,  it  disappeared  from  human  sight.  Pos- 
sibly its  scattered  members  maintained  worship  for  years 
in  London — we  get  occasional  glimpses  of  illegal  assem- 
blies, the  nature  of  which  is  not  very  clear,  meeting  from 
time  to  time  in  and  about  London,  and  attracting  the  oc- 
casional notice  of  the  government.  Possibly  it  contributed 
to  the  formation  of  the  London  church  which,  twenty-one 
years  after  the  petition  that  has  been  quoted,  chose  Francis 
Johnson  for  its  pastor  and  John  Greenwood  for  its  teacher, 
and  which  had  Henry  Barrowe  for  its  leading  member. 
But  though  perhaps  probable,  this  continued  existence 
of  Fitz's  church  is  only  conjectural.  Had  it  been  the 
sole  witness  to  a  completer  reformation,  Congregationalism 
would  never  have  come  into  being.  The  work  which  the 
London  church  of  1567  apparently  began  to  do  was  really 
accomplished,   and   the   Congregational  system   really  set 


30  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  i. 

forth  so  as  first  to  claim  any  considerable  degree  of  atten- 
tion, through  the  labors  and  writings  of  Robert  Browne — 
to  whom  this  polity  is  so  indebted,  in  spite  of  any  be- 
ginnings made  by  Richard  Fitz  and  his  associates,  that 
he  deserves  the  title  of  the  father  of  modern  Congrega- 
tionalism. 


CHAPTER    II. 

EARLY   ENGLISH    CONGREGATIONALISM. 

Robert  Browne,  whose  writings  contain  the  first 
definite  statement  of  Congregational  principles  from  an 
English  pen,  was  neither  in  fixity  of  character  nor  in  sa- 
gacity of  method  a  man  to  win  admiration  or  to  command 
personal  respect.  His  ultimate  conformity  to  the  Church 
of  England  caused  early  Congregationalists  to  resent  the 
application  of  his  name  to  their  churches,  and  still  leads 
occasional  writers  on  Congregational  history  to  disparage 
his  services  or  discredit  his  leadership.  Nor  have  histo- 
rians of  the  Establishment  forgotten,  in  spite  of  his  recon- 
ciliation to  the  English  Church,  the  fierceness  of  the  attack 
which  he  made  for  a  time  upon  that  body.  His  personal 
qualifications  were  not  those  of  a  leader  in  an  enterprise 
demanding  patience.  He  had  little  capacity  to  give  peace 
or  permanency  to  the  congregations  which  he. founded, 
and  small  faculty  for  holding  continuous  fellowship  with 
his  associates.  He  was  a  man  of  rash  impulsiveness  of 
temperament  always. 

Yet  when  all  detractions  have  been  made  from  his  per- 
sonal worth,  there  can  be  no  question  that  he  was,  at  least 
during  the  portion  of  his  career  with  which  we  have  to  do, 
a  man  of  sincerity  and  of  warm  Christian  faith ;  and  the 
probability  seems  strong,  as  Dr.  Dexter  has  pointed  out, 
that  the  abandonment  of  his  Congregational  professions, 
which  has  cost  him  the  respect  due  to  a  confessor,  was  the 
result  of  mental  break-down  consequent  upon  disappoint- 

31 


32  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

ments  and  imprisonments  rather  than  any  real  denial  of 
the  beliefs  for  which  he  had  proved  himself  ready  to  suffer. 
Whatever  his  defects  may  have  been,  he  enjoys  the  dis- 
tinction not  only  of  being  the  first  to  formulate  Congrega- 
tional polity,  but  the  earliest  Englishman  also  to  proclaim 
the  doctrine  that  church  and  state  should  be  mutually 
independent.  A  man  of  such  clearness  of  insight,  and  who 
made  such  large  contributions  to  Congregational  develop- 
ment, cannot  be  denied  a  prominent  place  in  the  history  of 
Congregational  beginnings. 

Browne  came  of  a  family  of  considerable  local,  promi- 
nence in  Rutlandshire,  which  had  an  estate  at  Tolethorpe, 
and  was  connected  with  that  of  Lord  Burghley,  who  was 
from  the  neighboring  county  of  Lincoln.  Here  at  Tole- 
thorpe  Browne  was  born  about  the  year  1550,  though  the 
exact  date  is  still  undiscovered.  No  details  of  his  early 
life  have  been  preserved ;  if  we  may  judge  by  his  early 
manhood,  he  must  have  been  a  youth  of  feeble  health  but 
of  eager  impulsiveness.  By  1570  he  was  a  student  at 
Corpus  Christi  College  in  the  University  of  Cambridge, 
and  in  1572  he  recei\-ed  there  his  degree  of  bachelor  of 
arts.  The  university  at  the  time  was  turmoiled  by  the 
great  controversy  between  Cartwright  and  Whitgift — a 
contest  which  cost  Cartwright  his  professorship  in  Decem- 
ber, 1570,  and  his  fellowship  at  Trinity  College  in  Sep- 
tember, 1 57 1,  but  which  made  him  more  conspicuously 
than  ever  the  champion  of  the  Puritan  cause.  No  atmos- 
phere more  adapted  to  excite  an  eager  young  student 
could  well  be  imagined ;  and  Browne  was  doubtless  now 
awakened,  if  he  had  not  been  before,  to  the  importance  of 
a  further  reformation  of  the  English  Church.  Evidences 
of  his  own  pronounced  attitude  in  sympathy  with  the 
radical  party  are  soon  apparent.  Unless  the  historian 
Strype  has  confused  him  with  a  man  of  similar  name,  as  is 


ROBERT  BROWNE.  33 

not  impossibly  the  case,  Browne  was  in  1 5  7 1,  a  year  before 
his  graduation,  a  chaplain  in  the  household  of  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  and  of  opinions  so  obnoxious  to  his  churchly 
superiors  that  the  duke  was  moved  to  plead  in  his  be- 
half that  his  position  was  a  privileged  station,  in  order  to 
save  him  from  citation.  However  this  may  have  been,  for 
some  three  years  after  his  graduation  he  taught  school, 
probably  in  Southwark ;  and  during  this  period  he  preached 
occasionally,  at  considerable  peril,  to  unlawful  gatherings 
of  Christian  people  met  together  for  divine  worship  in 
gravel-pits  about  Islington.  His  teaching  being  inter- 
rupted by  the  plague,  he  was  soon  back  in  Cambridge ; 
but  more  important  for  him  than  any  course  of  study 
undertaken  at  the  university  was  his  entrance  into  the 
family  and  under  the  theological  instruction  of  Rev.  Rich- 
ard Greenham  of  the  neighboring  village  of  Dry  Drayton. 
Introduced  into  this  strenuous  Puritan  home,  Browne's 
good  qualities  won  speedy  recognition  from  its  head,  and 
though  Greenham  had  little  sympathy  with  Separatist 
ideas,  Browne  was  encouraged  by  him  to  preach  in  Puri- 
tan pulpits,  apparently  without  the  license  of  a  bishop. 
Nor  were  Browne's  ministrations  in  any  way  unacceptable. 
An  urgent  request  from  a  congregation  in  Cambridge, 
probably  that  of  Benet  Church,  induced  him  to  labor  for 
half  a  year  in  that  town,  and  his  hearers  would  gladly 
have  secured  his  ministrations  more  permanently  had  not 
a  change  in  his  own  views  rendered  his  continuance  even 
in  the  Puritan  wing  of  the  Church  of  England  impossible. 
This  momentous  change,  which  transformed  the  zealous 
young  preacher  from  a  Puritan,  waiting  like  thousands  of 
others  for  the  further  reform  of  the  EngHsh  Establishment 
by  the  slow  process  of  agitation  and  the  hand  of  civil 
authority,  into  a  Separatist,  attacking  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land as  an  unchristian  body  and  insisting  on  the  segre- 


34  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  li. 

gation  of  religious  men  and  women  from  its  fellowship, 
occurred  during  this  Cambridge  ministry,  and  probably 
in  1579.  As  Browne  looked  upon  the  condition  of  the 
Establishment,  with  its  all-inclusive  membership  and  its 
too  frequent  toleration  of  unfit  men  in  the  ministry,  he 
felt,  as  every  Puritan  did,  a  burning  desire  for  its  reforma- 
tion. But  he  felt  now,  what  the  Puritan  did  not,  that  the 
only  way  that  this  reformation  was  to  be  brought  about 
was  by  separation  from  a  body  where  such  unworthy  per- 
sons were  tolerated.  Most  of  all  he  was  convinced  that 
any  dependence  upon  the  licensure  of  bishops  for  minis- 
terial authority  was  a  sin,  since  to  the  bishops  more  than 
to  any  other  class  of  church  officers  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  hindrance  of  the  necessary  reformation  of  the  cliurch 
was  due.  They  prevented  the  exercise  of  discipline  desired 
by  the  Puritans,  they  silenced  the  preachers  most  eager 
for  reform,  they  kept  the  church  in  much  the  state  in 
which  it  had  been  when  it  came  out  of  its  papal  subjection 
at  the  beginning  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  Browne  therefore 
now  proclaimed  to  his  Cambridge  hearers  that  their  own 
reformation  was  incomplete ;  and,  though  it  seems  almost 
certain  that  he  must  already  have  received  episcopal  ordi- 
nation, he  now  repudiated  all  dependence  on  the  author- 
ization of  bishops,  and  denounced  the  whole  order.  The 
consequence  was  that  he  was  speedily  silenced. 

The  notification  of  his  inhibition  from  preaching  Browne 
received  with  scorn,  and  he  seems  to  have  been  impelled 
by  it  to  a  yet  firmer  conviction  that  it  was  his  duty  to 
leave  a  church  where  episcopal  authority  could  be,  as  he 
thought,  so  abused,  and  where  full  Christian  life  seemed 
to  him  so  hedged  about  with  hindrances.  Having  heard 
that  in  the  adjacent  county  of  Norfolk  there  were  those 
who  were  seeking  a  purified  church,  he  now  determined 
to  join  them ;  but  at  this  juncture  a  former  acquaintance. 


BROWNE'S  SPIRITUAL  DEVELOPMENT.  35 

Robert  Harrison,  came  to  Cambridge  from  Norwich,  the  chief 
city  of  Norfolk,  and  it  was  to  this  friend's  house  at  Norwich 
that  Browne  went  when  he  took  his  departure  from  Cam- 
bridge, probably  in  1580.  Harrison,  who  for  several  years 
was  to  be  the  companion  and  associate  of  Browne,  was  of 
maturer  age,  though  his  seems  to  have  been  the  less  mas- 
terful mind.  He  had  graduated  at  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Cambridge,  in  1567,  and  had  already  had  difficulties  with 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  owing  to  pronounced  Puritan 
scruples  regarding  certain  portions  of  the  service.  A  man 
less  erratic  in  his  tendencies  than  Browne,  and  less  fruit- 
ful also  in  his  reasoning,  he  added  an  element  of  stability 
for  a  time  to  the  congregation  which  Browne  gathered, 
and  his  pecuniary  assistance  apparently  made  possible  the 
publication  of  Browne's  books.  But  his  connection  with 
the  Congregational  movement  was  brief;  by  about  1585 
he  was  no  longer  of  the  living. 

It  was  in  study  and  discussion  with  Harrison  at  Norwich 
that  Browne  fully  worked  out  his  theories  of  church  polity. 
Evidently  his  investigation  of  the  scattered  hints  contained 
in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament  was  profound ;  and  to 
his  thinking  the  Scriptures  were  the  direct  source  of  his 
system.  But  it  is  not  impossible  that  some  indirect  in- 
fluence of  Anabaptist  thought  may  have  aided  in  shaping 
Browne's  views.  He  had  been  attracted  to  Norfolk  by 
the  presence  there  of  persons  desirous  for  a  radical  refor- 
mation of  the  Establishment  as  well  as  by  his  friendship 
for  Harrison.  Who  these  persons  were  it  is  hard  to  tell. 
But  Norfolk  was  a  county  whose  towns  contained  a  large 
admixture  of  Dutch  handicraftsmen,  and  the  suggestion 
seems  a  probable  one  that  Anabaptist  modes  of  thought, 
imported  with  these  Hollanders  into  their  new  English 
home,  may  have  borne  some  fruitage,  and  may  have  un- 
consciously affected  Browne  himself  in  his  conceptions  of 


36  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

the  church.  Though  no  trace  of  a  recognition  of  indebt- 
edness to  Anabaptist  thought  can  be  found  in  Browne's 
writings,  and  though  we  discover  no  Dutch  names  among 
the  small  number  of  his  followers  whom  we  know  by  name 
at  all,  the  similarity  of  the  system  which  he  now  worked 
out  to  that  of  the  Anabaptists  is  so  great  in  many  respects 
that  the  conclusion  is  hard  to  avoid  that  the  resemblance 
is  more  than  accidental.  At  the  same  time,  its  unlikeness 
in  other  important  features,  as,  for  instance,  the  doctrine 
of  baptism,  is  so  marked  that  we  may  be  sure  that  Browne 
did  not  borrow  directly  or  consciously;  and  that  if  influ- 
enced by  the  Anabaptist  movement  at  all,  as  it  seems  de- 
cidedly probable  that  he  was,  it  must  have  been  in  conse- 
quence of  an  Anabaptist  way  of  thinking  in  the  regions  of 
eastern  England,  where  Dutch  immigrants  were  numerous, 
rather  than  by  contact  with  avowed  Anabaptists. 

Browne  was,  in  early  life  at  least,  a  man  in  whom  belief 
was  coupled  with  action ;  and  the  development  of  his  sys- 
tem during  the  first  months  of  his  residence  at  Norwich 
was  followed  by  the  formation,  on  Congregational  lines, 
of  a  church  in  that  city  some  time  in  1580  or  1581.  But 
though  Browne  was  the  pastor  of  this  little  flock,  his  mis- 
sionary efforts  extended  beyond  the  borders  of  Norfolk 
certainly  as  far  as  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  where  his  preach- 
ing was  received  with  much  appreciation  by  the  humbler 
classes,  and  where  he  possibly  established  a  church,  and 
certainly  made  disciples  who  ultimately  suffered  death  for 
distributing  his  books.  This  activity  brought  upon  Browne 
the  hand  of  ecclesiastical  restraint,  though  his  relationship 
to  Lord  Burghley  and  that  nobleman's  interest  in  him — 
an  interest  which  involved  no  sympathy  with  his  views — 
prevented  the  degree  of  severity  that  would  have  been 
measured  out  to  a  less  powerfully  connected  innovator. 
But  the  opposition  of  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  and  soon 


BROWNE'S   CHURCH.  37 

that  also  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  convinced  the 
major  part  of  the  Httle  Norwich  church  that  it  was  useless 
to  attempt  to  carry  on  its  work  in  England ;  and  there- 
fore, after  some  debate  in  which  Scotland  and  the  Channel 
Islands  were  considered,  it  emigrated,  probably  late  in 
1 58 1,  to  Middelburg,  a  little  city  in  the  Dutch  province  of 
Zeland,  which  had  long  had  extensive  trade  relations  with 
the  eastern  towns  of  England,  and  where  resident  English 
merchants  maintained  a  congregation  of  strongly  Puritan 
tendencies,  now  under  the  pastoral  charge  of  the  exiled 
Cartwright.  A  portion  of  the  church,  it  seems  certain,  re- 
mained at  Norwich  and  continued  in  some  humble  fashion 
its  organization. 

Arrived  on  Dutch  soil,  Browne  and  Harrison  still  con- 
tinued their  interest  in  their  English  home.  The  congre- 
gation under  their  care  preserved  its  independence,  it 
appears,  as  long  as  Browne  remained.  Indeed,  Browne 
deemed  that  Puritanism,  even  of  the  strenuous  type  rep- 
resented by  Cartwright,  was  unworthy  of  fellowship,  since 
it  continued  in  the  national  church,  from  which  he  thought 
it  the  duty  of  a  Christian  to  come  out;  and  this  feeling  of 
dishke  was  repaid  by  the  aversion  of  the  Puritans  to  the 
whole  Separatist  movement.  To  influence  the  people  of 
the  land  which  he  had  left,  Browne,  with  the  aid  of  Har- 
rison, sent  forth  from  Middelburg  three  tracts  during  the 
year  1582,  of  which  two  are  of  the  utmost  importance  in 
early  Congregational  literature.  One,  named  "  A  Treatise 
of  Reformation  without  Tarying  for  anie,  and  of  the 
wickednesse  of  those  Preachers,  which  will  not  reforme 
till  the  Magistrate  commaunde  or  compell  them,"  carries  its 
burden  on  its  title.  It  is  a  strenuous  argument  for  instant 
separation  from  the  Establishment,  and  a  special  attack 
upon  the  position  of  the  Puritans  who  were  waiting  within 
the  Church  of  England  for  its  reform  by  civil  authority. 


38  THE   CONGREGATIONALISrS.  [Chap.  ii. 

The  other,  entitled  "  A  Booke  which  Sheweth  the  life  and 
manners  of  all  true  Christians,  and  howe  vnlike  they  are 
vnto  Turkes  and  Papistes,  and  Heathen  folke,"  is  the  first 
systematic  exposition  of  its  principles  which  Congrega- 
tionalism produced.  In  it,  under  an  elaborate  and  some- 
what mechanical  form  of  questions,  counter-questions,  and 
definitions,  Browne  outlined  his  system  as  he  read  it  in 
the  Word  of  God.  To  his  thinking  a  Christian  church 
is  a  body  of  professed  believers  in  Christ,  united  to  one 
another  and  to  their  Lord  by  a  voluntary  covenant.  This 
covenant  is  the  constitutive  element  which  transforms  an 
assembly  of  Christians  into  a  church.  Its  members  are 
not  all  the  baptized  inhabitants  of  a  kingdom,  but  only 
those  possessed  of  Christian  character.  Such  a  church  is 
under  the  immediate  headship  of  Christ,  and  is  to  be  ruled 
only  by  laws  and  officers  of  his  appointment.  To  each 
church  Christ  has  intrusted  its  own  government,  discipline, 
and  choice  of  officers ;  and  the  abiding  officers  are  those 
designated  in  the  New  Testament,  the  pastor,  teacher, 
elders,  deacons,  and  widows,  whom  the  church  is  to  select 
and  set  apart  for  their  various  duties.  But  the  presence 
of  these  officers  does  not  relieve  the  ordinary  member  of 
responsibility  for  the  welfare  of  the  church  to  which  he 
belongs.  On  the  contrary,  Christ  is  the  immediate  Lord 
not  only  of  the  church  but  of  every  member  of  it,  and 
each  member  is  responsible  to  him  for  the  stewardship  of 
the  graces  with  which  he  has  been  intrusted.  This  direct- 
ness of  connection  between  Christ  and  all  the  members  of 
his  church  made  Browne's  polity  practically  democratic, 
and  rendered  it  more  prophetic  of  what  Congregationalism 
has  become  in  our  century  than  were  the  more  aristocratic 
theories  of  Barrowe  and  of  the  settlers  of  New  England. 

But  while  Browne  thus  asserted  the  full  autonomy  of  the 
local  church  and  the  full  responsibility  of  each  member  for 


BROWNE'S   CONGREGAriONALISM.  39 

its  good  order,  he  held  also  that  churches  have  obligations 
one  toward  another  which  bind  them  to  mutual  watch  and 
brotherly  helpfulness.  Here,  then,  in  germ  at  least,  Browne 
set  forth  that  conception  of  mutual  accountability  which 
is  one  of  the  distinguishing  features  of  Congregationalism, 
and  which  renders  his  system  something  more  than  bald 
Independency. 

In  one  other  matter  also  Browne's  views  were  prophetic. 
To  his  thinking  the  civil  authorities  have  no  right  to  exer- 
cise lordship  over  spiritual  concerns,  or  to  enforce  submis- 
sion to  any  ecclesiastical  system.  It  was  an  opinion  already 
advanced  by  the  Anabaptists  of  the  Continent,  but  which 
no  Englishman  had  yet  proclaimed,  and  it  found  little  echo 
even  among  his  immediate  disciples.  Harrison  did  not 
share  it,  the  London- Amsterdam  church  of  Johnson  and 
Ainsworth  did  not  sympathize  with  it,  and  we  shall  find 
that  early  New  England  had  no  place  for  it.  But  in  this, 
as  in  many  other  directions,  Browne  saw  more  clearly  than 
men  of  his  century  of  far  greater  stability  and  personal 
worth  than  he. 

The  opinions  advanced  in  these  tracts  by  Brovxue  from 
his  safe  retreat  in  Holland  were  far  too  revolutionary  to 
meet  with  toleration  in  England,  and  it  was  for  circulation 
in  England  that  the  pamphlets  were  designed.  Soon  they 
were  sent  in  considerable  numbers,  apparently  in  unbound 
sheets,  to  those  places  in  his  native  island  where  Browne 
had  labored,  and  on  June  30,  1583,  they  called  forth  a 
proclamation  in  the  name  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  which 
they  are  described  as  "  sundry  seditious,  scismaticall,  and 
erronious  printed  Bookes  and  libelles,  tending  to  the  de- 
prauing  of  the  Ecclesiastical  gouernment  established  within 
this  Realme  "  ;  and  all  persons  possessing  them  are  ordered 
to  give  them  up,  while  all  who  distribute  them  are  threat- 
ened with  the  penalties  of  sedition.      But  even  before  this 


40  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  ii, 

proclamation  had  been  put  forth,  on  June  4  and  5,  1583, 
two  men,  John  Coppin  and  EHas  Thacker,  were  hanged  at 
Bury  St.  Edmunds  on  the  dual  charge  of  heresy  and  the 
circulation  of  the  works  of  Browne  and  Harrison — some 
forty  of  the  confiscated  books  being  burned  at  the  exe- 
cutions. 

But  by  the  time  that  these  martyrs  to  Congregational- 
ism were  giving  up  their  lives,  Browne's  flock  in  Middel- 
burg  were  in  serious  division.  His  own  disposition  un- 
fitted him  to  unite  or  conciliate  discordant  elements.  He 
disagreed  with  his  friend  Harrison,  he  felt  that  his  pres- 
ence with  the  congregation  which  he  had  led  into  exile 
had  become  irksome;  and  therefore,  late  in  1583,  Browne 
and  four  or  five  of  his  followers,  with  their  families,  went 
from  Holland  to  Scotland.  But  in  Scotland  Browne  met 
with  nothing  but  opposition,  extending  even  to  imprison- 
ment, from  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  that  Presbyte- 
rian land.  Here  he  not  only  utterly  failed  to  secure  any 
following  of  importance,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  church  government  of  Scotland  was  more  overbearing 
and  less  tolerable  than  even  the  Episcopacy  of  England. 

Browne's  work  as  a  reformer  was  now  nearly  over.  By 
the  summer  of  1584  he  was  apparently  once  more  in  Eng- 
land, where  he  seems  to  have  met  with  imprisonment,  from 
which  he  was  relieved  by  Lord  Burghley.  One  more  at- 
tempt to  proclaim  the  truths  for  which  he  had  witnessed — 
this  time  at  Northampton,  it  is  probable — led  to  his  ex- 
communication by  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough  in  1586. 
He  might  well  be  discouraged  over  his  successive  failures, 
and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  his  health,  never  robust, 
had  been  shattered  by  his  trials.  The  conjecture  advanced 
by  Dr.  Dexter,  that  he  was  worn  out  mentally  and  physi- 
cally, seems  probable.  At  all  events,  he  became  head  of 
a  grammar  school  at  South wark,  in  November,  1586,  on 


THE  LONDON  CHURCH.  41 

terms  which  bound  him  to  keep  peace  with  the  Establish- 
ment and  submit  to  its  rites.  In  September,  1591,  he  re- 
ceived the  rectorship  of  Achurch-cum-Thorpe — no  doubt 
as  the  gift  of  Lord  Burghley — and  as  rector  of  that  ob- 
scure village  he  lived  for  forty  years,  dying,  however,  some 
time  between  June,  1631,  and  November,  1633,  in  North- 
ampton jail,  where  he  was  confined  owing  to  his  violent 
resistance  to  the  collection  of  a  debt  or  a  tax  by  an  officer 
of  his  parish. 

The  seed  which  Browne  had  sowed  in  so  many  places, 
and  which  he  had  not  the  qualities  long  to  cultivate,  bore 
a  harvest  that  was  better  than  the  sower.  At  Norwich 
a  portion  of  the  church  which  Browne  had  gathered  con- 
tinued the  organization  after  he  and  a  majority  of  its  fel- 
lowship had  gone  to  Holland ;  and  in  other  places,  Con- 
gregational views,  spread  we  know  not  how,  took  root 
and  bore  fruit.  The  preface  to  the  Confession  put  forth 
by  the  London- Amsterdam  church  in  1596  speaks  of  wit- 
nesses to  Congregational  principles  in  Bury  St.  Edmunds, 
in  Gloucester,  and  in  London ;  while  other  hints  are  given 
us  of  Separatist  associations  in  Chatham  and  in  the  west 
of  England.  But  of  all  these  obscure  adherents  to  what 
they  believed  to  be  the  polity  taught  by  the  Word  of  God, 
only  those  of  London  formed  a  church  of  any  prominence 
or  influenced  the  development  of  Congregational  thought. 
Possibly  some  continuous  religious  organization  had  been 
maintained  by  the  London  Separatists  from  the  time  of 
Richard  Fitz  and  his  fellow-prisoners  of  1567;  but  it  is 
not  till  1586  or  1587  that  the  existence  of  the  Separatist 
gatherings  from  which  the  London  church  was  to  be  de- 
veloped is  clearly  manifest.  The  early  history  of  that 
church  is  closely  bound  up  with  the  stories  of  three  men 
of  high  character — Henry  Barrowe,  John  Greenwood,  and 
John  Penry — all  of  whom  gave  their  lives  for  the  cause 


42  THE    COhTGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  it. 

which  they  advocated,  and  one  of  whom,  Barrowe,  turned 
Congregational  thought  in  a  direction  considerably  differ- 
ent from  that  imparted  to  it  by  Browne,  so  that  his  work 
constitutes  a  second  stage  in  the  growth  of  the  system. 
Neither  of  these  men  can  be  affirmed  to  have  been  the 
founder  of  London  Separatism,  however,  nor  do  they  seem 
to  have  been  the  only  proclaimers  of  Separatist  doctrines 
in  that  city.  On  the  contrary,  hints  of  occasional  meetings 
in  private  houses  and  in  secluded  spots  in  and  near  Lon- 
don, and  of  the  ministrations  of  a  dozen  leaders  of  these 
petty  assemblies,  show  that  the  Separatist  leaven  was  con- 
siderably widespread  during  the  four  or  five  years  previous 
to  1592.  But  the  first  event  of  importance  in  the  history 
of  London  Congregationalism  as  now  known  to  us  is  the 
arrest  of  Greenwood  in  the  autumn  of  1586. 

John  Greenwood  was  a  young  clergyman  of  the  Estab- 
lishment, who  had  studied  from  March,  1578,  to  his  grad- 
uation in  1580-81  at  Cambridge,  where  he  had  been  a 
sizar,  or  pecuniarily  assisted  student,  of  Corpus  Christi  Col- 
lege. His  graduation  had  been  followed  by  his  ordination  ; 
but  Puritan  scruples,  possibly  imbibed  at  Cambridge,  led 
Greenwood  to  become  a  chaplain  in  the  household  of  Lord 
Rich,  a  Puritan  nobleman  of  Essex.  By  what  further  pro- 
cesses he  advanced  from  Puritanism  to  Separatism  we 
do  not  know — not  improbably  Browne's  books  may  have 
awakened  his  thought — but  certainly  in  the  autumn  of  1586 
he  was  preaching  to  illegal  assemblies  in  London,  and  at 
one  of  these  gatherings,  held  at  a  house  in  that  city,  he 
was  seized  and  thence  transferred  to  the  Clink  prison. 

On  news  of  his  arrest.  Greenwood  was  visited  in  his 
prison  by  his  friend  and  fellow-laborer,  Henry  Barrowe,  a 
man  of  higher  social  rank,  of  maturer  years,  and  far  greater 
abilities.  Barrowe's  teaching  had  already  incurred  the 
displeasure   of   Archbishop  Whitgift ;    and   therefore   the 


GREENWOOD   AND  BARROWE.  43 

jailer,,  without  legal  warrant,  but  well  knowing  that  his 
arrest  would  be  gratifying  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities, 
detained  Greenwood's  visitor  as  a  prisoner.  Thencefor- 
ward till  their  death  on  a  common  scaffold,  Barrowe  and 
Greenwood  were  imprisoned,  save  for  brief  periods  of  re- 
lease on  bail ;  and  during  most  of  this  time  they  shared 
the  same  sufferings  and  labors. 

Henry  Barrowe  was  a  man  of  much  more  than  ordinary 
talents  and  advantages.  He  was  of  a  Norfolk  family  of 
some  prominence,  and  his  education  had  been  at  Clare 
Hall,  in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  where  he  was  a 
student  from  1566  to  1569-70.  Though  brought  thus 
into  a  Puritan  atmosphere,  no  thought  of  personal  religion, 
much  less  of  ministerial  service,  was  apparently  entertained 
by  him  during  his  student  days,  or  for  some  years  there- 
after. He  came  to  London,  becoming  a  lawyer  of  Gray's 
Inn  in  1576,  and  was  of  sufficient  prominence  to  have 
access  to  the  royal  presence ;  but  he  was  a  man  of  im- 
moral life,  and  might  have  so  continued  to  the  end  of  his 
days  had  not  a  chance  sermon  been  the  means  of  his  spirit- 
ual awakening.  A  man  of  impetuous  temper  always,  he 
passed  at  once  from  his  former  profligacy  to  extreme  Puri- 
tanism. And  from  Puritanism  he  was  led  onward — there 
is  some  reason  to  think  through  the  agency  of  Greenwood 
— to  a  type  of  Congregational  Separatism,  which,  if  not 
quite  so  extreme  as  that  of  Browne,  nevertheless  viewed 
the  English  Establishment  as  unscriptural  and  therefore 
unchristian. 

The  two  prisoners  were  speedily  and  repeatedly  brought 
before  Archbishop  Whitgift,  John  Aylmer,  Bishop  of 
London,  and  other  ecclesiastical  dignitaries;  and  also  ex- 
amined by  a  commission,  embracing,  besides  these  high 
officials  of  the  church,  the  chief-justices.  Lord  Burghley, 
and  other  prominent  civilians.      Before  all  these  examiners 


44  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

they  maintained  firmly  their  conviction  that  the  govern- 
ment, rites,  and  sacraments  of  the  Estabhshment  were  not 
ordered  as  Christ  designed ;  and  that  its  all-inclusive 
membership  made  it  no  true  church.  They  as  firmly  as- 
serted their  belief  that  the  queen  was  sovereign  in  all  civil 
affairs,  but  they  denied  to  her  any  power  over  the  church, 
of  which  Christ  is  the  sufficient  head.  In  these  harassing 
interrogations  Greenwood  was  the  more  self-controlled ; 
the  impetuous  spirit  of  Barrowe  met  the  browbeatings  of 
the  bishops  more  often  with  anger  and  invective.  Lord 
Burghley,  when  he  appeared  on  the  scene,  manifested 
much  of  his  usual  gravity ;  but  the  impression  left  on  the 
mind  is  that  the  bishops  in  these  examinations  showed 
little  charity  and  less  courtesy.  All  attempts  to  shake  the 
constancy  of  the  prisoners  were  unavailing. 

Having  failed  thus  by  judicial  examination  to  bring  the 
two  Separatists  to  an  acknowledgment  that  their  teach- 
ings were  erroneous,  Whitgift  and  Aylmer,  with  the  counsel 
of  the  two  chief-justices  of  the  realm,  after  Barrowe  and 
Greenwood  had  been  for  more  than  two  years  in  confine- 
ment, commissioned  a  number  of  the  clergy  of  the  vicinity 
of  London  to  visit  these  and  similar  prisoners  at  least  twice 
a  week  and  attempt  their  recovery  to  conformity.  The 
visits  were  useless ;  but  they  provoked  a  desire  on  the  part 
of  the  chief  prisoners  to  set  their  case  before  the  reading 
public,  which  bore  notable  fruit.  Under  the  most  dis- 
advantageous circumstances,  unable,  as  Barrowe  himself 
declared,  to  keep  one  sheet  at  hand  while  a  second  was 
written,  compelled  to  smuggle  their  writings  out  of  prison 
page  by  page,  and  to  have  them  carried  surreptitiously  to 
Dort  in  Holland  by  friendly  hands  for  printing,  Barrowe 
and  Greenwood  produced  no  less  than  eight  controversial 
and  expository  treatises,  containing  over  nine  hundred 
printed  pages.      Chief  in  imoortance  perhaps  is  the  "  Trve 


EXPOSITIONS   OF  CONGREGATIONALISM.  45 

Description  ovt  of  the  Word  of  God,  of  the  visible  Church," 
of  1589,  a  brief  sketch  in  which  the  writers  set  forth  their 
conception  of  what  God  designed  his  church  should  be, 
and  which,  though  somewhat  ideal  in  tone,  is  evidently  a 
document  which  the  yet  imperfectly  organized  congrega- 
tion at  London  looked  upon  as  in  some  sense  its  creed. 
But  almost  equally  valuable,  and  far  more  voluminous,  are 
Barrowe's  "  Brief  Discouerie  of  the  False  Church,"  of 
1590 — a  cogent  criticism  of  the  existing  condition  of  the 
Establishment — and  Barrowe  and  Greenwood's  "  Plaine 
Refutation  of  M.  Gififards  Booke,  intituled,  A  short  trea- 
tise gainst  the  Donatistes  of  England,"  printed  in  1591, 
which  was  not  only  a  vigorous  reply  to  the  censures  of 
an  able  Puritan  critic,  but  was  to  be  in  a  most  remarkable 
way  the  means  of  the  conversion  of  Francis  Johnson,  the 
first  regular  pastor  of  this  London  church  of  which  Bar- 
rowe and  Greenwood  were  so  conspicuous  members. 
Here,  then,  was  an  activity  which  must,  greatly  have 
annoyed  the  supporters  of  existing  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions, while  it  aided  much  in  the  spread  of  Separatist 
views. 

In  these  tracts  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  presented  a 
theory  of  the  church  in  most  points  identical  with  that 
of  Browne.  With  him  they  hold  that  a  true  church  is 
a  company  of  "  faithful  and  holie  people,"  having  as  its 
officers  pastors,  teachers,  elders,  deacons,  and  widows,  who 
obtain  their  offxce  "  by  the  holy  &  free  election  of  the  Lordes 
holie  and  free  people."  To  this  church,  as  a  whole,  the 
power  of  discipline  has  been  intrusted,  and  of  it  Christ  is 
the  immediate  head.  But  while  the  London  prisoners 
thus  agree  for  the  most  part  with  Browne,  they  were  not 
as  democratic  as  he.  The  execution  of  government  they 
shut  up,  practically,  in  the  hands  of  the  church  officers. 
It  is  the  duty  of  the  ordinary  membership  to  be  "  a  most 


46  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

humble,  meek,  obedient,  faithfull,  and  loving  people." 
And  this  semi-Presbyterian  conception  of  the  internal 
government  of  the  church,  instead  of  the  democracy  of 
Browne,  dominated  all  early  English  and  American  Con- 
gregationalism. As  Rev.  Samuel  Stone,  of  Hartford,  epi- 
grammatically  expressed  this  theory  two  generations  after 
Barrowe's  death,  it  placed  the  officers  as  "  a  speaking  aris- 
tocracy in  the  face  of  a  silent  democracy."  That  in  mod- 
ern Congregationalism  this  democracy  is  no  longer  silent 
is  evidence  that  in  this  particular  Browne  saw  more  clearly 
than  Barrowe ;  but,  for  a  century  after  Barrowe  wrote,  his 
view  was  the  generally  accepted  Congregational  theory  of 
the  relations  of  officers  and  people. 

These  writings  from  the  London  prisons,  and  the  efforts 
of  humbler  members  of  the  Separatist  company,  gained 
converts.  Barrowe  and  Greenwood,  if  the  most  promi- 
nent, were  by  no  means  the  only  Separatists  now  under 
confinement.  At  the  time  when  certain  of  the  London 
clergy  were  deputed  to  attempt  the  conversion  of  the 
Nonconformists  in  1589  there  were  fifty-two  persons  under 
arrest,  and  though  it  is  too  much  to  affirm  that  all  were 
Congregational  Separatists,  it  is  probable  that  most  of 
them  were  of  Barrowe's  way  of  thinking.  A  petition  pre- 
served by  Strype,  and  probably  of  the  year  1592,  has  ap- 
pended to  it  the  names  of  fifty-nine  surviving  prisoners 
who  besought  the  favor  of  Lord  Burghley,  and  in  this  case 
there  seems  little  doubt  that  all  the  signers  were  Sepa- 
ratists. Whether  this  petition  had  any  influence  on  the 
government  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  the  treatment  of  these 
prisoners  for  a  few  months  in  1592  was  less  severe  than  it 
had  been,  and  that  Greenwood,  if  not  Barrowe,  was  oc- 
casionally allowed  to  go  beyond  his  prison  walls.  This 
lull  in  the  storm,  if  such  it  deserves  to  be  called,  was 
marked  by  two  events  of  importance,  the  addition  of  John 


JOHN  PENRY.  .  47 

Penry  and  of  Francis  Johnson  to  the  Separatist  company, 
and  the  completion  of  its  organization  by  the  London 
church. 

John  Penry,  one  of  the  martyrs  of  Congregationalism, 
and  one  to  whom  youth  and  purity  of  character  lend  a 
touch  of  romance,  was  of  Welsh  birth  and  Roman  Catholic 
training.  In  1580  he  entered  the  college  of  Peterhouse, 
at  Cambridge,  when  about  twenty-one  years  old,  and  be- 
fore his  graduation  in  1583-84  had  abandoned  Catholicism 
and  embraced  an  ardent  type  of  Puritanism.  His  ready 
pen  was  soon  busied  with  tracts  advocating  the  claims  of 
Wales  on  missionary  effort,  and  urging  at  the  same  time 
the  Puritan  cause.  Besides  a  voluminous  series  of  contro- 
versial tractates  of  which  he  was  the  acknowledged  author, 
he  appears  to  have  been  connected  with  the  publication, 
though  not  probably  with  the  composition,  of  the  remark- 
able series  of  satirical  attacks  upon  the  Establishment 
issued  in  1588  and  1589,  and  known  as  the  Martin  Mar- 
prelate  pamphlets,  the  moral  worth  of  which  is  still  dis- 
puted in  some  quarters,  but  which  are  confessedly  among 
the  most  effective  pasquinades  ever  written  in  the  English 
tongue. 

Penry's  acknowledged  writings  speedily  called  down 
upon  him  the  censure  of  Archbishop  Whitgift  and  the 
High  Commission ;  but  it  was  not  till  the  pursuit  after  all 
suspected  of  connection  with  the  Mar-prelate  tracts  had 
become  keen  that  he  fled  from  England  to  Scotland  in 
1589.  Here  he  found  so  much  sympathy  for  his  Puritan 
views,  that,  in  spite  of  an  autograph  letter  of  Elizabeth  re- 
questing his  extradition,  and  a  proclamation  of  James  VI. 
against  him,  he  enjoyed  protection  till  1592.  He  now 
came  to  London,  and  whether  he  had  advanced  from 
Puritanism  to  Separatism  during  his  stay  in  Scotland,  and 
was  so  attracted  to  the  congregation  of  which  Barrowe 


48  THE    COiVGREGATIOXA LISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

and  Greenwood  were  members,  or  whether  he  was  won 
to  their  principles  after  his  return  to  English  soil,  Penry 
joined  the  Separatist  communion  in  the  autumn  of  the 
year  of  his  arrival. 

Like  Greenwood  and  Penry,  Francis  Johnson,  the  sec- 
ond of  the  notable  additions  to  the  London  Separatists, 
was  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England.  Of  Yorkshire 
birth,  he  had,  like  them,  enjoyed  the  training  of  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  had  graduated  in  1581.  It  was  while 
enjoying  a  fellowship  in  Christ's  College  that  a  sermon  of 
strong  Puritan  flavor  preached  by  him  led  to  his  imprison- 
ment, and  ultimately  to  his  expulsion  from  the  university 
in  1589  and  his  self-exile  to  Middelburg,  where  he  be- 
came pastor  of  the  English  church  which  had  enjoyed  the 
services  of  Cartwright.  Johnson  had  no  more  sympathy 
than  other  Puritans  for  the  Separatists,  and  on  learning 
that  Barrowe  and  Greenwood's  "  Plaine  Refutation  "  of  his 
fellow-Puritan  Gifford's  attack  upon  Separatism  was  being 
printed  in  1591  either  at  Dort  or  at  Middelburg,  he  noti- 
fied the  English  ambassador  of  the  proposed  publication, 
and  was  charged  to  see  the  books  burned.  This  he  did 
most  thoroughly ;  but  as  a  memento  of  his  exploit  John- 
son preserved  two  copies  from  the  flames.  He  had  not 
yet  read  the  works  which  he  had  condemned,  and  the 
perusal  of  this  volume  carried  conviction  to  him.  He  re- 
signed his  position  at  Middelburg,  sought  out  Barrowe  in 
the  London  prison,  and  was  soon  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent of  the  London  Separatist  church. 

Thus  strengthened  in  membership,  and  enjoying  a  little 
respite  from  the  severer  forms  of  persecution,  the  London 
church  felt  encouraged  to  perfect  its  organization  by  the 
appointment  of  the  officers  designated,  as  it  beUeved,  in 
the  Bible.  The  church  had,  indeed,  for  several  years  ex- 
ercised certain  ecclesiastical  acts.      It  had  admitted  mem- 


FRANCIS  JOHNSON.  49 

bers  as  early  as  1588  by  a  formal  covenant  that  they 
"  wold  walke  with  the  rest ;  &  yt  so  longe  as  they  did 
walke  in  the  way  of  the  Lorde,  &  as  farr  as  might  be 
warranted  by  the  word  of  God."  It  had  also  exercised 
the  discipline  of  excommunication ;  though,  owing  to  its 
want  of  officers,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  administered 
the  Lord's  Supper.  That  it  had  so  long  remained  un- 
officered  was  doubtless  due  to  the  hope  that  those  who 
were  the  church's  recognized  leaders  would  be  released 
from  imprisonment ;  and  now  that  Greenwood  was  allowed 
to  go  beyond  his  prison  walls  and  Penry  and  Johnson  had 
been  added  to  the  company,  the  time  seemed  ripe  for 
action.  Barrowe  was  ineligible,  we  may  believe,  by  reason 
of  his  continued  confinement,  and  Penry  refused  an  elec- 
tion, since  he  still  hoped  to  spend  his  life  in  Wales  rather 
than  in  London;  but  in  September,  1592,  the  London 
church,  gathered  in  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Fox,  in  Nicholas 
Lane,  elected  Johnson  as  its  pastor  and  Greenwood  as  its 
teacher;  and  associated  with  them  as  elders  Daniel  Stud- 
ley,  who  had  helped  to  smuggle  Barrowe's  manuscripts 
out  of  the  prison,  and  George  Kniston  or  Knyveton.  At 
the  same  time  Christopher  Bowman  and  Nicholas  Lee 
were  chosen  deacons,  and  the  sacraments  of  baptism  and 
the  eucharist  were  administered. 

This  evident  growth  of  the  Separatist  Church  in  London 
renewed  the  alarm  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  In 
December  following  Johnson  and  Greenwood  were  both 
lodged  in  prison;  Penry  avoided  arrest  for  a' few  weeks 
longer,  but  in  March,  1593,  he  was  captured,  and  the 
same  month  saw  the  arrest  of  fifty-six  of  the  humbler 
members  of  the  persecuted  communion.  It  was  deter- 
mined to  make  an  example  of  the  leaders.  Accordingly, 
after  examination  before  Chief- Justice  Popham,  Barrowe 
and    Greenwood    were  tried  on  March  23,    1593.      Their 


50  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

accusation  was  based  distinctly  on  the  law  of  the  twenty- 
third  year  of  Elizabeth,  making  it  a  capital  offense  to 
write  any  book  maliciously  attacking  the  authority  of  the 
queen  or  inciting  to  rebellion.  On  this  charge,  in  spite 
of  their  protests  of  loyalty  in  all  civil  matters,  they  were 
convicted ;  but  it  was  not  until  an  attempt  had  been  made 
to  induce  them  to  recant  by  the  labors  of  certain  clergy- 
men, and  they  had  once  been  reprieved  on  the  gallows 
itself,  that  they  were  hanged,  on  April  6,  1593.  Their 
martyrdom  was  followed  on  May  21st  by  the  condemnation 
of  Penry — the  conclusive  evidence  in  his  case  being  an 
unfinished  draught  of  a  petition  to  the  queen,  in  which  he 
complained  that  she  and  her  government  prevented  the 
due  service  of  God  as  enjoined  in  his  Word.  This  pri 
vate  paper  was  held  to  be  a  seditious  attack  upon  the  sov- 
ereign, and  on  May  29th  Penry  joined  that  company  who 
have  not  counted  their  lives  dear  unto  themselves  that  they 
might  testify  to  what  they  believed  to  be  the  gospel  of 
the  grace  of  God. 

These  executions  had  the  warm  approval  of  the  bishops, 
but  they  were  not .  regarded  with  satisfaction  by  many 
in  England  who  were  far  enough  from  sharing  Separatist 
opinions.  While  these  witnesses  for  their  faith  had  been 
under  trial  Parliament  had  been  discussing  a  bill  introduced 
by  the  bishops  designed  to  strengthen  the  action  of  the 
courts  in  dealing  with  critics  of  the  Establishment.  In 
the  discussion  of  this  bill  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  had  uttered 
his  absurdly  exaggerated  estimate  that  the  Brownists  of 
England  numbered  more  than  twenty  thousand.  But  the 
bishops  had  found  the  Commons  unsubmissive,  and  the 
law  as  finally  passed  made  the  penalty  for  the  denial  of 
the  queen's  supremacv,  or  attendance  on  illegal  meetings, 
forfeiture  of  goods  and  banishment,  instead  of  death.  It 
was  under  this  new  law  that  the  government  now  began 


EXILES  IN  AMSTERDAM.  5  i 

to  treat  its  numerous  Separatist  prisoners  in  a  manner  well 
calculated  to  destroy  their  feeble  organization.  While 
their  more  prominent  survivors,  like  Johnson,  were  kept 
in  confinement,  the  less  important  prisoners  were  com- 
pelled to  go  into  exile.  These  poor  artisans,  aided  in 
part  by  a  little  property  left  for  their  use  by  Barrowe, 
made  their  way  within  the  year  of  his  execution  to  Holland  ; 
and  there  after  a  few  months  settled  in  Amsterdam,  living 
in  the  direst  poverty,  and  still  looking  to  their  officers  in 
the  London  prisons  for  leadership  and  advice. 

It  was  in  the  first  year  or  two  of  this  Dutch  exile,  how- 
ever, that  a  young  man  of  whose  early  history  we  know 
little  joined  himself  to  this  company — Henry  Ainsworth ; 
a  man  who  probably  never  enjoyed  a  university  educa- 
tion, but  who  had  few  superiors  as  a  Hebraist  in  his  own 
day  and  whose  expositions  of  the  Old  Testament  are  still 
held  in  esteem.  The  most  learned  of  early  Congregation- 
alists,  he  was  also  one  of  the  most  deserving;  and  his 
sweet-tempered  love  of  peace  made  him  an  excellent 
counselor  for  the  struggling  church  in  the  years  of  inter- 
nal turmoil  which  it  passed  through  at  Amsterdam.  Ains- 
worth had  been  born  in  1570  or  15  71  at  Swanton,  prob- 
ably a  village  of  that  name  near  Norwich,  the  city  where 
Browne  established  his  church ;  but  of  the  means  of  his 
conversion  to  Separatist  views  or  of  the  circumstances 
which  brought  him  to  Amsterdam  we  know  nothing,  save 
that  he  probably  came  by  way  of  Ireland,  and  gained  his 
livelihood  after  his  arrival  in  the  Dutch  city  as  a  porter  in 
a  bookseller's  shop.  And  here,  in  some  way  unknown  to 
us,  these  London  Separatists  found  him,  living,  if  Roger 
Williams  was  correctly  informed,  on  boiled  roots  at  nine- 
pence  a  week,  and  eagerly  pursuing  every  opportunit}^  to 
increase  his  learning.  This  was  the  man  whom  the  exiled 
church  now  chose,   at    some    uncertain   date,   but  clearly 


52  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ii. 

within  two  or  three  years  of  its  coming  to  Amsterdam, 
to  the  teachership  made  vacant  by  the  death  of  Green- 
wood. 

Having  thus  in  some  measure  made  good  their  loss  by 
martyrdom,  this  divided  church,  part  of  whose  members 
were  still  in  the  London  prisons  and  part  in  exile,  put  forth 
in  1596  a  statement  of  its  faith  and  polity  and  of  the 
reasons  which  had  led  it  to  separation  from  the  English 
Estabhshment,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Trve  Confession  of 
the  Faith,  and  Hvmble  acknowledgment  oe  the  Alegeance, 
which  wee  hir  Maiesties  Subjects,  falsely  called  Brownists, 
doo  hould  towards  God,  and  yeild  to  hir  Majestic  and  all 
other  that  are  ouer  vs  in  the  Lord."  Its  execrable  typog- 
raphy attested  the  poverty  of  its  publishers,  but  its  spirit 
was  one  of  confident  persuasion  of  the  justice  of  its  cause. 
In  doctrine  it  did  not  differ  from  the  current  Calvinism 
of  the  age,  while  in  polity  it  set  forth  the  main  principles 
of  Congregationalism  as  already  expounded  by  Barrowe. 
As  was  natural  from  men  who  had  suffered  so  much  for 
their  beliefs  as  to  the  polity  which  the  Bible  enjoined,  it 
was  severe  in  its  denunciations  of  the  English  Church, 
holding  that  "  all  that  will  bee  saued,  must  with  speed 
come  forth  of  this  Antichristian  estate,  lea\-ing  the  sup- 
pression of  it  vnto  the  Magistrate  to  whom  it  belongeth." 
These  poor  prisoners  and  exiles  were  ready  enough  to 
affirm  that  the  magistrate  had  no  power  to  prescribe  any 
other  order  than  that  established  by  our  Lord,  but  they 
appealed  to  the  same  hand  which  had  dealt  out  exile  and 
death  to  them  to  abolish  an  ecclesiastical  organization  the 
unscripturalness  of  which  they  believed  that  they  had 
demonstrated. 

How  long  this  di\ision  of  the  church  between  London 
and  Amsterdam  might  ha\-e  continued  it  is  impossible  to 
say,  but   it  was  brought  to  an  end  at   last  by  the  Eng- 


EXILES  IN  AMSTERDAM.  53 

lish  Government  itself,  which,  early  in  1597,  allowed  the 
greater  part  of  the  still  imprisoned  members  to  join  their 
associates  in  Holland,  while  it  permitted  Johnson  and 
three  others  to  join  in  an  abortive  enterprise  for  planting 
a  colony  on  the  Magdalen  Islands  in  the  Gulf  of  St.  Law- 
rence, an  expedition  from  which  Johnson  returned  in  time 
to  join  the  waiting  church  at  Amsterdam  before  the  end 
of  the  year. 

But  unhappily  the  coming  together  of  these  separated 
elements  was  not  altogether  a  union  of  peace.  On  no 
feature  of  church  administration  did  Puritans  and  Separa- 
tists alike  lay  more  stress  than  on  discipline ;  and  it  must 
be  confessed  that  those  Congregationalists  gathered  by 
Browne  at  Norwich  and  these  exiles  from  London  carried 
the  duties  of  brotherly  watchfulness  to  a  degree  of  minute- 
ness that  was  captious  and  irritating  in  the  extreme. 
The  quarrel  which  was  to  turmoil  the  early  Amsterdam 
life  of  this  little  communion  had  its  beginnings  in  London 
in  the  objections  of  the  pastor's  brother  to  the  fashion 
of  the  garments  worn  by  the  pastor's  wife.  It  was  pro- 
tracted, dreary,  personal ;  and  it  illustrated  the  fact,  so 
often  exemplified,  that  leadership  in  a  great  enterprise  is 
no  guarantee  of  exemption  from  pettiness  and  unchari- 
tableness. 

The  story  of  this  London  church  to  its  full  gathering 
on  alien  soil  has  thus  been  followed  with  some  minuteness ; 
a  glance  at  its  later  history  will  be  sufficient.  On  the  ac- 
cession of  James  I.  to  the  English  throne  in  1603,  in  com- 
mon with  reformers  of  all  shades,  its  members  cherished 
the  hope  of  a  change  from  the  ecclesiastical  policy  of 
Elizabeth — a  hope  that  was  bitterly  disappointed.  A  vain 
attempt  to  secure  permission  from  the  new  sovereign  to 
be  allowed  to  worship  God  in  England  on  the  same  terms 
as  congregations  of  French  and  Dutch  Protestants  enjoyed 


54  THE    CONGREGAriOKALISTS.  [Chap.  ii.    , 

in  that  island  persuaded  them  that  their  only  safety  was 
in  continued  exile.  But  that  exile  was  stormy.  Johnson 
and  others  of  the  company  were  men  of  strong  opinions. 
Divisions  rent  the  church,  especially  after  the  arrival  of 
the  erratic  John  Smyth  and  his  Gainsborough  congrega- 
tion in  Amsterdam  about  1606.  Diversity  of  opinion  as 
to  the  extent  of  the  duties  of  church  officers  and  the 
amount  of  power  to  be  allowed  to  the  ordinary  members 
in  church  government  separated  Ainsworth  and  Johnson, 
and  divided  the  flock  under  their  charge  into  two  congre- 
gations in  1610.  Johnson  died  in  Amsterdam  in  January, 
16 1 8,  and  Ainsworth  followed  him,  not,  as  has  sometimes 
been  alleged,  by  poison,  but  by  that  plague  of  seventeenth- 
century  scholars,  the  stone,  in  1622  or  1623.  With  their 
departure  from  the  scene  the  vitality  of  this  much-divided 
organization  seems  to  have  been  nearly  spent,  though 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  continued  a  feeble  exist- 
ence till  1 701,  when  the  remnant  was  received  into  the 
English  Reformed  Church  of  Amsterdam — a  Puritan  or- 
ganization conformed  in  government  to  the  Calvinistic 
Established  Church  of  Holland,  which  had  always  enjoyed 
the  approval  of  the  Dutch  authorities. 

It  is  with  mingled  feelings  that  a  modern  Congregation- 
alist  looks  back  upon  the  attempts  to  establish  the  Congre- 
gational polity  which  have  been  narrated  in  this  chapter. 
The  story  is  one  of  strength  and  courage,  of  suffering  will- 
ingly undergone,  of  heroism  and  martyrdom.  But  it  is 
a  story  also  of  weakness  and  division  and  failure.  '  The 
men  whom  it  presents  to  our  view  had  their  full  share 
of  human  infirmities ;  but  they  had  a  faith  in  God  and  a 
simple  desire  to  do  his  will  that  is  worthy  of  all  praise. 
Yet  had  Browne  and  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  and  John- 
son and  Penr}^  and  Ainsworth  been  all  the  leaders  that 
early  Congregationalism  produced,  the  system  which  they 


EXILES  IN  AMSTERDAM.  55 

loved  would  scarcely  have  survived  them.  They  did  a 
noble  and  an  indispensable  work;  but  it  was  well  that 
other  workmen,  more  patient,  more  united,  if  less  gifted, 
entered  into  their  labors  and  reaped  the  harvest  which 
they  had  sowed,  but  which  they  were  not  fitted  to 
earner. 


CHAPTER    III. 

CONGREGATIONALISM    CARRIED   TO    AMERICA. 

The  qualities  of  permanency,  which  were  lacking  In  the 
Separatist  churches  thus  far  considered,  were  possessed  by 
a  Separatist  congregation  in  the  north  of  England,  itself 
apj^arently  the  fruit  of  the  labors  of  one  of  the  most  un- 
stable men  ever  associated  with  the  story  of  Congrega- 
tionalism. John  Smyth,  the  founder  of  this  church,  is  first 
known  to  us  as  a  student  at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge, 
where  he  graduated  in  1575—76,  and  where  he  enjoyed  a 
fellowship.  What  he  did  immediately  after  leaving  Cam- 
bridge is  not  clear,  but  he  seems  after  a  time  to  have  ob- 
tained a  living  as  a  clergyman  of  the  Establishment  at 
Gainsborough-on-Trent.  How  long  his  connection  with 
the  Church  of  England  continued  we  do  not  know,  but  a 
period  of  nine  months  of  mental  struggle  brought  him  to 
the  Separatist  position ;  he  renounced  the  Establishment, 
and  gathering  a  little  flock  of  like-minded  people,  most 
probably  in  the  year  1602,  he  became  its  pastor.  Though 
this  Congregational  church  had  its  origin  and  seat  at 
Gainsborough,  it  soon  gained  adherents  in  the  farming 
district  outside  the  town,  especially  in  the  region  where 
the  borders  of  Nottinghamshire,  Lincolnshire,  and  York- 
shire adjoin.  Chief  among  these  out-of-town  converts 
to  Separatism  was  William  Brewster,  the  postmaster  at 
Scrooby,  on  the  main  road  from  London  to  York.  The 
ample,  though  dilapidated,  "  manor-house  "  which  he  oc- 
cupied gave  room  for  the  gathering  for  worship  of  Sepa- 

56 


THE  PILGRIM  CHURCH.  57 

ratist  sympathizers  like  the  youthful  William  Bradford  of 
the  neighboring  hamlet  of  Austerfield,  and  others  from 
other  villages  in  the  vicinity.  Brewster  was,  at  the  time 
of  the  gathering  of  the  Gainsborough  church,  a  man  nearly 
or  quite  forty  years  of  age,  of  fair  classical  education,  and 
of  a  good  deal  of  knowledge  of  the  world,  gained  in  the 
employ  of  William  Davison  during  that  unfortunate  states- 
man's embassy  to  Holland.  A  man  of  maturity,  sound 
judgment,  and  stability,  Brewster  was  a  natural  leader, 
though  not  in  the  pastoral  office,  for  that  section  of  the 
Gainsborough  church  that  had  its  center  at  his  house. 
But  even  more  important  for  its  development  was  the 
addition  to  the  little  company,  apparently  in  1604,  though 
the  exact  time  is  a  little  uncertain,  of  John  Robinson,  on 
the  whole  the  best-known  minister  connected  with  early 
Separatist  Congregationalism.  There  seems  some  reason 
to  believe  that  Robinson  was  by  birth  from  the  Gainsbor- 
ough region,  and  that  his  union  with  Smyth  and  Brewster 
and  their  associates  was  in  some  sense  a  home-coming. 
However  this  may  have  been,  he  had  entered  Corpus 
Christi  College,  in  Cambridge,  in  1592,  when  about  seven- 
teen years  of  age ;  and  after  passing  through  the  ordinary 
course  of  a  student's  life,  became  a  minister  of  the  Estab- 
lishment and  a  fellow  of  his  college.  From  about  1600 
he  labored,  probably  as  a  curate,  either  in  Norwich  or  its 
vicinity.  Here,  in  the  neighborhood  where  Browne  had 
taught,  and  where  some  traces  of  his  work  still  continued, 
Robinson's  thought  advanced  from  Puritanism  to  Separa- 
tism, and  his  teachings  became  so  marked  as  to  lead  to  his 
suspension  by  the  Bishop  of  Norwich ;  in  consequence  of 
which  inhibition,  and  after  a  good  deal  of  mental  conflict, 
he  now  removed  to  the  vicinity  of  Gainsborough  and  joined 
himself  to  the  church  there.  It  was  at  some  uncertain 
date   in    1605   or   1606,   not    long   after   his   coming,  that 


58  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  m. 

the  Gainsborough  church  amicably  dixdded,  for  safety  and 
convenience,  one  portion  continuing  to  meet  under  the 
guidance  of  Smyth  for  a  httle  longer  in  its  old  home,  and 
the  other  having  its  simple  services  at  Scrooby  and  en- 
joying the  ministry  of  Robinson  and  of  the  venerable 
Richard  Clyfton,  who  had  been  rector  at  Babworth,  a 
village  near  Scrooby. 

The  two  branches  of  the  original  Gainsborough  church 
were  destined  to  experiences  in  some  respects  alike,  but 
in  other  features  singularly  diverse.  Both  were  speedily 
objects  of  governmental  persecution.  To  escape  this  in- 
terference Smyth  and  the  Gainsborough  flock  emigrated 
to  Amsterdam,  probably  in  1606;  while  the  Scrooby  con- 
gregation was  moved  by  similar  reasons  to  try  the  same 
exiles'  road  in  1607  and  1608.  But  in  HoHand  the  differ- 
ing qualities  of  the  leaders  of  the  two  congregations  had 
much  to  do  in  giving  them  different  destinies.  On  their 
arrival  in  Amsterdam  the  impetuous  Smyth  and  his  as- 
sociates settled  as  a  second  church  side  by  side  with  the 
London- Amsterdam  church  of  which  Johnson  and  Ains- 
worth  were  the  leaders,  the  stormy  experiences  of  which 
have  been  mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter.  But  with 
this  older  church  Smyth  soon  quarreled.  To  his  thinking  the 
congregation  of  Johnson  and  Ainsworth  was  in  error,  since 
it  used  the  English  version  of  the  Scriptures  in  public 
worship,  instead  of  translating  t'zV^  voce,  and  in  1608  he 
called  on  his  church  to  have  no  fellowship  with  their  neigh- 
bors until  they  should  reform.  The  same  prohibition  of 
written  or  printed  helps  he  extended  to  preaching  and  the 
singing  of  psalms.  It  was  after  this  step  had  been  taken, 
but  probably  in  the  next  year,  1609,  that  Smyth,  led 
thereto  by  contact  with  the  Mennonites  of  Amsterdam, 
adopted  Baptist  views,  and  reorganizing  his  church,  bap- 
tized himself  and  his  associates.     But  even  here  Smyth 


JOHN  SMYTH.  59 

did  not  rest.  Doubt  as  to  the  rightfulness  of  the  step 
which  he  had  taken  seems  •  to  have  entered  his  mind, 
and  some  changes  in  other  directions  seem  to  have  mod- 
ified his  theology,  so  that  he  and  his  sympathizers  were 
next  cast  out,  by  his  associates  Helwys  and  Murton, 
from  the  congregation  which  he  had  led  through  so  many 
changes.  Smyth  then  made  a  vain  attempt,  in  1609,. to 
enter  the  communion  of  the  Amsterdam  Mennonites ;  but 
failing  in  this,  he  remained  outside  of  formal  church  fellow- 
ship till  his  death,  in  161 2.  It  was  probably  in  the  year 
of  his  death  that  his  associates  till  the  quarrel  of  1609, 
Helwys  and  Murton,  established  in  London  the  first  of 
Baptist  churches  on  English  soil ;  and  thus  the  Baptist 
fellowship  of  England  and  America  traces  its  direct  sources 
back  to  the  same  fountain  at  Gainsborough  from  which 
Plymouth  Congregationalism  flowed  forth. 

If  Smyth  thus  gave  to  the  exiles  whom  he  led  from 
Gainsborough  a  stormy  experience  at  Amsterdam,  the 
story  of  the  Scrooby  congregation  under  Robinson  was 
healthful  and  peaceful.  Their  transfer  to  Amsterdam  in 
1607  and  1608  was  effected  in  the  face  of  much  govern- 
mental opposition  and  many  hardships,  and,  once  arrived 
in  the  chief  commercial  city  of  Holland,  they  were  de- 
barred from  permanent  settlement  by  the  well-grounded 
fear  entertained  by  the  leading  members  of  the  company 
that  they  would  become  involved  in  the  disputes  distract- 
ing the  churches  of  Ainsworth  and  Johnson  and  of  Smyth. 
Accordingly,  in  1609,  they  took  up  their  abode  in  Leyden, 
under  the  pastoral  care  of  Robinson,  and  with  Brewster 
as  their  ruling  elder.  Here  they  dwelt,  working  at  such 
trades  as  they  were  able  to  learn,  at  peace  with  them- 
selves, and  earning  the  respect  of  their  Dutch  neighbors 
by  their  unswerving  honesty.  Here,  too,  Robinson  and 
other  prominent  members  purchased  a  large  house,  oppo- 


6o  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  hi. 

site  St.  Peter's  church,  for  the  use  of  the  exiled  congrega- 
tion. Here  Brewster  printed  books  for  such  as  desired  to 
publish  what  was  forbidden  in  England ;  and  here,  after  a 
time,  Robinson's  unusual  powers  of  debate  won  him  recog- 
nition as  a  disputant  against  the  Arminian  champion  Epis- 
copius  in  one  of  the  minor  episodes  of  the  great  struggle 
over  Calvinism  then  convulsing  Holland. 

But  life  was  hard  at  the  best  for  the  exiles,  though  their 
church  grew  largely,  and  though  some  of  their  most  valu- 
able material,  like  young  Edward  Winslow,  was  added 
during  this  Leyden  sojourn.  It  was  difficult  to  keep  the 
children  free  from  the  temptations  of  an  alien  city ;  it  w'as 
above  all  distressing  for  those  who  were  English  in  feeling 
and  sympathy  to  see  no  prospect  but  that  of  gradual 
absorption  in  a  foreign  population ;  and  for  Christian  men 
such  as  these  not  the  least  element  of  dissatisfaction  with 
their  lot  was  that  it  afforded  so  few  opportunities  to  ex- 
tend the  knowledge  of  the  gospel  in  its  purity  beyond 
their  own  circle.  So  it  was,  that,  as  time  went  on,  the 
Scrooby- Leyden  church  began  to  debate  more  and  more 
strenuously  the  possibility  of  emigration.  Guiana,  just 
then  much  talked  of  in  English  circles  as  a  promising 
region  for  colonization,  was  discussed ;  but  happily  for  the 
future  of  the  United  States,  the  decision  finally  reached 
was  to  apply  to  the  London  branch  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany— a  sub-organization  having  authority  from  King 
James  L  to  establish  colonies  on  the  American  coast  be- 
tween the  thirty-fourth  and  the  forty-first  degrees  of 
latitude — for  permission  to  emigrate  under  its  auspices. 
There,  on  soil  yet  unbroken  by  the  plowshares  of  civiliza- 
tion, but  nevertheless  in  a  real  sense  English,  they  hoped 
to  plant  the  institutions  of  the  gospel  for  which  they  had 
gone  into  the  exile  in  Holland,  and  live  as  Englishmen, 
though  free  from  the  ecclesiastical  Establishment  which 


.  -  PILGRIMS  AT  LEYDEN.  6 1 

enforced  uniformity  in  every  hamlet  of  their  native  island. 
It  was  a  momentous  decision,  far  surpassing  in  its  boldness 
any  proposition  of  emigration  in  these  days  when  the  world 
is  brought  close  together  by  steam ;  but  the  Leyden 
Christians  had  the  example  of  the  settlers  of  Virginia  be- 
fore them  to  show  that  it  was  not  impossible  of  accomplish- 
ment. Yet  it  was  not  easy  to  carry  the  resolution  into 
execution.  The  Virginia  Company  was  willing  enough  to 
receive  promising  emigrants  to  open  up  its  territories ; 
but  the  Leyden  congregation  desired  permission  from  the 
king,  if  possible,  for  the  free  exercise  of  their  worship 
on  the  soil  of  the  new  settlement.  That  privilege  was 
the  real  difficulty.  In  hope  of  securing  it  Robinson  and 
Brewster  provided  their  two  commissioners  to  the  English 
authorities  in  1617  with  a  statement  of  the  position  of  the 
Leyden  church  drawn  up  in  seven  remarkable  articles,  and 
intended  to  make  the  utmost  possible  concession  to  English 
prejudice.  There  is  much  reason  to  think  that  Robinson's 
type  of  Separatism  was  less  strenuous  and  more  tolerant 
than  that  of  Browne  or  Barrowe,  but  in  these  articles  the 
Leyden  pastor  and  ruling  elder  declare  their  willingness 
to  admit  the  authority  of  the  king  to  appoint  bishops,  and 
his  supremacy  in  all  causes  and  over  all  persons,  as  well 
as  the  duty  of  yielding  at  least  passive  obedience  to  all  his 
commands.  They  even  were  willing  to  admit  the  author- 
ity of  the  existing  bishops  as  royal  representatives,  though 
they  were  careful  not  to  ascribe  any  spiritual  authority 
unto  them.  It  was  the  utmost  extreme  of  concession  to 
which  these  exiles  could  go ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  in  that 
while  it  preserved  the  most  essential  elements  of  the  beliefs 
for  which  its  writers  had  suffered,  they  were  willing  to 
give  full  toleration  to  the  religious  institutions  established 
by  law  in  England.  Perhaps  this  readiness  was  the  prod- 
uct merely  of  the  strong  desire  to  secure  the  privileges 


62  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  hi. 

of  toleration  in  return  ;  but  the  London-Amsterdam  church 
had  shown  itself  wholly  intolerant  of  the  Establishment 
when  in  circumstances  even  more  necessitous,  and  a  large 
degree  of  toleration  of  others — when  judged  by  Anglican 
or  Puritan  standards — was  ever  characteristic  of  the  Plym- 
outh colony,  which  had  its  germ  in  this  Leyden  church. 

Conciliatory  as  this  presentation  was,  the  king,  supported 
by  the  English  ecclesiastical  authorities,  would  give  no 
guarantee  of  toleration  to  the  suppliants.  The  utmost 
that  could  be  obtained  from  James  was  a  verbal  under- 
standing that  as  long  as  they  behaved  peaceably  in  their 
new  home  they  would  be  unmolested.  Encouraged  by 
this  promise,  a  patent  was  obtained  from  the  company  in 
June,  1 619,  in  the  name  of  an  English  friend  of  the  strug- 
gling church — John  Wincob — a  patent  of  which  they  ulti- 
mately made  no  use.  But  in  spite  of  the  granting  of  the 
patent,  the  arrangements  for  the  transfer  of  the  exiles 
to  America  dragged;  and  at  this  juncture,  early  in  1620, 
negotiations  were  begun  by  merchants  of  Amsterdam 
looking  for  their  settlement  in  New  York,  then  the  Dutch 
territory  of  the  New  Netherlands.  It  was  while  these  new 
discussions  were  in  progress  that  the  London  merchants, 
whom  they  had  already  approached,  made  definite  terms 
with  tlie  Leyden  emigrants.  As  finally  agreed,  the  colo- 
nists and  merchant-contributors  were  made  into  a  stock 
company,  in  which  the  labor  of  each  emigrant  over  six- 
teen years  of  age  for  seven  years  was  considered  equal 
to  a  contribution  of  ;^io  by  the  merchants.  During  the 
first  seven  years  all  profits  and  results  of  labor  and  trade 
as  developed  in  the  colony  should  go  to  the  common 
stock,  from  which  food,  clothing,  and  tools  for  the  colo- 
nists should  come ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  period  all  should 
be  divided  among  the  stockholders.  That  the  Leyden 
emigrants  should  be  willing  to  enter  into  a  bargain  which 


THE  EMIGRATION.  63 

valued  their  labor  at  so  little  in  proportion  to  the  financial 
contributions  of  the  moneyed  members  of  the  partnership 
shows  in  the  clearest  light,  as  Palfrey  has  expressed  it, 
"  the  slenderness  of  their  means  and  the  constancy  of  their 
purpose." 

Yet  even  the  conclusion  of  this  hard  bargain  did  not 
relieve  the  emigrants  of  their  difficulties.  Their  scanty 
means,  the  uncertainty  of  the  enterprise,  and  the  inabil- 
ity or  unwillingness  of  some  of  their  number  to  under- 
take the  journey  even  had  their  pecuniary  resources  been 
greater  than  was  the  case,  had  already  made  it  evident 
that  not  quite  half  of  the  church  could  embark  upon  the 
expedition.  With  the  majority  Robinson  was  constrained 
to  remain,  though  with  a  hope  on  his  part  to  follow  his 
friends  later;  and  it  may  be  that  the  wishes  of  the  majority 
in  this  matter  were  aided  by  the  opposition  of  the  English 
contributing  merchants,  who  probably  were  glad  to  avoid 
the  notoriety  of  the  presence  in  a  colony,  for  the  religious 
aspects  of  which  they  cared  little,  of  so  redoubtable  an 
exponent  of  Separatism  as  Robinson.  So  it  was  agreed 
that  the  minority,  who  were  to  undertake  the  voyage, 
should  be  under  the  spiritual  guidance  of  Elder  William 
Brewster,  and  that  while  each  body — those  who  went  and 
those  who  remained — should  be  sufficiently  independent 
ecclesiastically  to  administer  its  own  aff"airs,  yet  they  were 
to  be  still  sufficiently  one  to  receive  members  one  from  the 
other  without  question  or  testimonial.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Brewster,  who  was  an  effective  preacher,  though  retaining 
his  position  as  elder,  was  practically  pastor  of  the  colonists, 
save  in  the  administration  of  the  sacraments,  for  nearly 
ten  years  after  the  settlement  at  Plymouth — the  emigrant 
church  looking  upon  the  absent  Robinson  as  in  some  sense 
their  pastor  as  long  as  he  lived,  and  finding  no  satisfactory 
successor  for  several  years  after  his  death. 


64  THE    CONGREGATION ALISTS.  [Chaf.  in. 

In  the  smaller  of  the  two  vessels  which  had  been  obtained 
for  the  expedition — the  "Speedwell" — the  emigrants,  or, 
as  Bradford  styles  them,  the  Pilgrims,  left  Delftshaven, 
the  port  most  convenient  to  Leyden,  not  far  from  the 
middle  of  July,  1620,  encouraged  on  their  way,  either  at 
the  time  of  sailing  or  more  probably  at  a  fast  just  before 
leaving  Leyden,  by  Robinson  in  a  memorable  and  elo- 
quent address  urging  upon  them  the  duty  of  open-mind- 
edness  to  the  leadings  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  and  voicing 
the  remarkable  prediction  that  should  English  Puritans 
leave  their  island  home  and  come  to  the  New  World  no 
essential  difference  in  church  administration  between  them 
and  the  Pilgrims  w^ould  be  found.  It  detracts  ■  nothing 
from  the  sweetness  and  charity  of  this  noble  utterance 
that  the  "  further  light  "  from  the  "  written  Word  "  which 
Robinson  exhorted  his  disciples  to  be  ready  to  receive 
was,  to  his  thinking,  light  on  church  polity  rather  than 
on  doctrine.  The  declaration  is  in  advance  of  the  spirit 
of  the  speaker's  age,  and  it  shovvs  the  breadth  of  sym- 
pathy, that,  combined  as  it  was  with  firmness  of  convic- 
tion on  those  matters  which  he  deemed  fundamental,  made 
him  the  best  beloved  and  the  most  influential  of  the  Sep- 
aratist ministers. 

From  Delftshaven  the  "  Speedwell  "  made  her  way  to 
Southampton,  England,  where  the  "Mayflower"  awaited 
them  with  some  additions  to  the  colony  drawn  directly 
from  English  sources.  On  August  5th-i5th  both  vessels 
set  sail,  but  soon  put  into  Dartmouth  for  repairs ;  and  the 
start  was  made  afresh.  But  again  the  "  Speedwell  "  proved 
unseaworthy,  or,  as  the  Pilgrims  afterward  believed,  her 
captain  and  crew  repented  of  the  voyage ;  and  back  they 
turned,  a  hundred  leagues  beyond  Land's  End,  for  the 
English  Plymouth.      Here  it  was  decided  to  abandon  the 


THE  EMIGRATION.  65 

misnamed  "  Speedwell,"  and  here  too  the  courage  of 
some  gave  out,  as  well  it  might  in  view  of  all  the  diffi- 
culties of  what  must  have  seemed  an  almost  hopeless  en- 
terprise. But  at  last,  on  September  6th-i6th,  the  "  May- 
flower" sailed  from  Plymouth  on  her  lonely  voyage, 
freighted  with  one  hundred  and  two  colonists,  of  whom 
twenty-two  were  hired  servants.  Most  of  the  independ- 
ent members  of  the  expedition  had  been  of  the  Leyden 
congregation,  though  as  the  younger  men  naturally  were 
more  largely  represented  in  the  enterprise  than  the  older, 
a  considerable  proportion  of  the  Leyden  emigrants  had  not 
been  long  of  Robinson's  fellowship.  Brewster  and  Brad- 
ford had  shared  the  fortunes  of  the  church  since  its  begin- 
nings at  Scrooby ;  John  Carver,  the  first  governor  of  the 
little  colony,  Deacon-Doctor  Samuel  Fuller,  its  physician 
and  the  man  who  was  more  than  any  other  to  be  the 
means  of  transforming  New  England  Puritanism  into  Con- 
gregationalism, Edward  Winslow,  its  able  man  of  affairs, 
Isaac  Allerton,  its  unsatisfactory  agent,  had  all  been  promi- 
nent in  the  congregation  at  Leyden ;  while  John  Alden, 
more  famous  in  romance  than  conspicuous  in  the  beginnings 
of  the  colony,  had  been  engaged  as  a  cooper  at  South- 
ampton after  the  long  journey  had  been  begun.  Quick- 
tempered and  brave  Myles  Standish  had  come  with  the 
Leyden  emigrants  from  Holland,  but  though  he  was  to 
do  much  for  the  colony,  he  hardly  sympathized  with  the 
religious  aspirations  which  animated  most  of  the  company, 
for  he  was  not  a  member  of  the  church,  and  may  have 
been  by  family  inclined  to  Catholicism  ;  but  his  heart  was 
in  the  success  of  the  enterprise  for  which  his  military  abil- 
ity had  probably  caused  him  to  be  chosen.  This  was  the 
company,  of  somewhat  diverse  elements,  but  dominated  by 
the  men  of  Leyden  training  who  constituted  the  majority 


66  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  hi. 

of  its  adult  membership,  that  sailed  from  the  English  Plym- 
outh, and  which,  after  a  tedious  voyage  of  no  special 
eventfulness,  found  itself  off  the  end  of  Cape  Cod  on 
November  9-19,  1620. 

But  here  a  serious  embarrassment  presented  itself  to  the 
voyagers.  The  patent  under  which  the  company  proposed 
to  make  its  settlement  was  issued  by  the  London  branch 
of  the  Virginia  Company — a  body  having  no  claim  to  juris- 
diction north,  of  forty-one  degrees,  a  little  northward  of 
the  present  city  of  New  York.  They  were  clearly  where 
they  had  no  legal  authority  to  be ;  and  in  this  condition, 
finding  it  impossible  to  go  to  any  place  within  the  limits 
of  their  charter  owing  to  the  opposition  of  the  sailors  who 
had  brought  them  over,  they  determined  to  settle  in  the 
region  where  Providence  had  cast  them,  and  to  provide 
for  the  good  order  of  the  little  community  by  the  organi- 
zation of  civil  government.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  this  step  had  been  planned  before  leaving  Leyden, 
but  the  form  in  which  it  was  carried  out  must  have  been, 
due  to  the  unforeseen  exigencies  of  the  situation.  It  is 
strikingly  illustrative  of  the  indirect  effects  of  Congrega- 
tional training  that  these  charterless  exiles  now  proceeded, 
on  November  i  ith-2ist,  to  provide  the  basis  of  their  state 
by  a  covenant,  just  as  they  would  have  organized  a  church. 
This  document,  drawn  up  and  signed  in  the  cabin  of  the 
"  Mayflower,"  is  as  follows  : 

"  In  the  name  of  God,  Amen.  We  whose  names  are 
vnderwritten,  the  loyall  Subiects  of  our  dread  soveraigne 
Lord  King  Iames,  by  the  grace  of  God  of  Great  Britaine, 
France,  and  Ireland  King,  Defender  of  the  Faith,  &c. 

"  Having  vnder-taken  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  ad- 
vancement of  the  Christian  Faith,  and  honour  of  our  King 
and  Countrey,  a  Voyage  to  plant  the  first  Colony  in  the 
Northerne  parts  of  Virginia,  doe  b}-  these  presents  sol  • 


ARRIVAL   IN  AMERICA.  67 

emnly  &  mutually  in  the  presence  of  God  and  one  of  an- 
other, covenant,  and  combine  our  selues  together  into  a 
civill  body  politike,  for  our  better  ordering  and  preserva- 
tion, and  furtherance  of  the  ends  aforesaid;  and  by  vertue 
hereof  to  enact,  constitute,  and  frame  such  iust  and  equall 
Lawes,  Ordinances,  acts,  constitutions,  offices  from  time  to 
time,  as  shall  be  thought  most  meet  and  convenient  for 
the  generall  good  of  the  Colony :  vnto  which  we  promise 
all  due  submission  and  obedience.  In  witnesse  whereof 
we  haue  here-vnder  subscribed  our  names.  Cape  Cod  ii. 
of  November  in  the  yeare  of  the  raigne  of  our  soveraigne 
Lord  King  Iames,  of  England,  France,  and  Ireland  18. 
and  of  Scotland  54.      Anno  Domino  1620." 

Thus  erected  into  a  civil  community,  they  chose  a  gov- 
ernor in  the  person  of  John  Carver,  and  proceeded  to  look 
about  for  a  place  of  settlement.  After  a  month  of  explo- 
ration, on  Monday,  December  iith— 21st,  the  investigating 
party  landed  at  the  place  where  Plymouth  was  afterward 
to  stand,  and  finding  it  suitable  for  their  purpose,  the 
greater  part  of  the  ship's  company  were  set  to  work  within 
a  few  days  preparing  dwellings  for  shelter  during  the  winter 
season  already  upon  them.  It  is  illustrative  of  their  strong 
religious  antipathy  to  what  they  deemed  the  improper 
observance  of  unscriptural  festival  days  in  the  countries 
of  their  birth  and  exile  that  on  their  first  Christmas  in  the 
New  World  "  no  man  rested."  They  had  kept  "  ye  Sabath  " 
with  scrupulous  care  even  in  the  most  pressing  season  of 
their  exploration,  and  they  equally  scrupulously  endeav- 
ored to  make  Christmas  as  if  it  were  not  by  going  "  on 
shore,  some  to  fell  timber,  some  to  saw,  some  to  rive,  and 
some  to  carry." 

Yet  winter,  even  an  exceedingly  mild  winter  as  this  was, 
is  a  sober  time  at  best  to  be  house-building  on  the  New 
England  coast,  and  its  exposures  were  rendered  more  de- 


68  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  m. 

structive  by  the  long  use  of  ship's  food;  so  that  the  settle- 
ment had  hardly  begun  before  its  scanty  numbers  fell  ill. 
By  the  ist  of  April  forty- four  of  the  little  company  had 
died;  but  the  few  survivors  were  determined  to  push  on, 
and  when  the  "  Mayflower"  sailed  for  England  on  April  5, 
1 62 1,  she  took  back  with  her-  only  her  own  sailors.  The 
prospect  was  indeed  gloomy  enough ;  scarcely,  had  the 
"Mayflower"  sailed  when  Governor  Carver's  name  was 
added  to  the  list  of  those  no  longer  living,  and  with  his 
death  the  little  colony's  tale  of  loss  counted  up  twenty- 
eight  of  its  forty-eight  adult  males.  By  the  following 
autumn  the  attempt  had  cost  the  lives  of  exactly  half  of 
those  who  had  come  over  in  the  "  Mayflower"  as' settlers. 
Such  a  bare  statement  of  facts  shows  better  than  any  rhe- 
torical picture,  however  brilliant,  the  sincerity  and  single- 
ness of  the  attachment  of  the  members  of  this  little  band 
to  the  principles  of  church  government  which  they  believed 
to  be  divinely  appointed ;  and  the  intense  satisfaction 
which  they  felt  in  being  at  last  where  they  could  combine 
freedom  and  self-government  with  life  on  English  soil. 
However  tolerable,  as  compared  with  a  persecuted  exist- 
ence in  their  native  island,  their  Holland  sojourn  may 
have  been,  the  most  eloquent  testimony  to  the  hardness 
of  their  lot  in  Leyden  is  the  willingness  of  these  Pilgrims 
to  continue  their  adventure  in  New  England. 

These  qualities  of  courage,  patience,  and  steadfastness 
were  general  rather  than  exceptional  in  the  company,  but 
the}-  have  no  better  illustration  than  in  the  person  of  Will- 
iam Bradford,  now  chosen  to  succeed  Carver  in  the  gov- 
ernorship from  which  he  had  been  removed  by  death. 
Thirty-one  years  of  age,  he  was  in  the  full  vigor  of  man- 
hood, but  he  had  behind  him  certainly  fifteen  years  of  tried 
fidelity  to  the  interests  of  the  community  of  which  he  was. 
now  made  the  head,  and  before  him  till  his  honored  death 


EARLY  STRUGGLES.  69 

thirty-six  years  of  continuous  service  as  the  leader  of  its 
affairs  and  for  the  greater  part  of  that  time  its  governor. 
A  man  of  education  for  one  who  had  not  the  privileges 
of  a  university,  a  natural  leader,  his  modesty  was  as  con- 
spicuous as  his  devotion  to  the  concerns  of  the  colony  was 
entire.  No  one  can  read  the  "  History"  in  which  he  has 
recorded  the  chief  events  in  which  he  was  so  conspicuous 
an  actor  without  feeling  that  we  have  to  do  with  a  man 
who  commanded  affection  as  well  as  respect,  a  strong, 
sweet,  self- forgetful  Christian  character;  and  it  is  the 
presence  of  such  men  as  Bradford  that  best  shows  us  why 
the  enterprise  at  Plymouth  did  not  die. 

The  enterprise  thus  inaugurated  slowly  grew.  In  No- 
vember, 1 62 1,  just  a  year  after  the  arrival  of  the  first  set- 
tlers, the  "Fortune"  brought  thirty-five  new  colonists — a 
welcome  addition — among  them  a  son  of  Elder  Brewster 
and  a  brother  of  Edward  Winslow,  but  most  of  them  ap- 
parently picked  up  by  the  merchant-partners  in  England, 
and,  as  Bradford  describes  them,  "  wild  enough."  In  July, 
1623,  about  sixty  additions  were  brought  to  the  colony  by 
the  "  Anne,"  ''  some  of  them  being  very  usefull  persons, 
,  .  .  and  some  were  so  bad,  as  they  were  faine  to  be  at  charge 
to  send  them  home  againe  y^  next  year."  That  these  less 
desirable  elements  came  with  the  better  was  due  to  the 
somewhat  discordant  aims  of  the  partners  in  the  Plymouth 
undertaking.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Leyden  Pilgrims  de- 
sired first  of  all  the  maintenance  of  Congregational  institu- 
tions and  the  preservation  of  the  moral  tone  of  the  com- 
munity ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  merchants  of  London,  who 
had  furnished  the  chief  part  of  the  money  for  the  advent- 
ure, cared  little  save  for  a  flourishing  trading  colony  which 
should  yield  satisfactory  profits.  A  divergence  of  wishes 
speedily  manifested  itself.  The  Pilgrims  desired  to  bring 
over  their  Leyden   associates  as  speedily  as  possible,  but 


70  THE   CONGREGATIONA LISTS.  [Chap.  hi. 

bound  as  they  were  to  their  partners,  they  could  not  well 
raise  the  money  for  such  an  end.  On  the  contrary,  the 
merchant-partners  preferred  to  send  active  young  men, 
picked  up  where  they  could  get  them,  who  might  make 
good  hunters,  fishers,  and  tillers  of  the  soil.  They  looked 
askance  at  the  Separatists  still  at  Leyden,  most  of  all  at 
Robinson,  wl^om  the  Pilgrims  desired  above  all  others 
should  come  to  them.  They  felt  that  if  something  could 
be  done  to  minimize  the  Separatist  characteristics  of  the 
colony  it  would  grow  more  rapidly.  And  so,  in  1624, 
instead  of  Robinson,  the  merchant-partners  sent  over  a 
certain  John  Lyford  to  minister  to  the  church,  which  was 
led  in  its  worship  by  Elder  Brewster,  and  still  regarded 
Robinson  as  its  pastor. 

Lyford  was  profuse  in  his  expressions  of  admiration  for 
the  institutions  of  the  colony  on  his  arrival,  and  joined  the 
church  as  if  he  had  been  at  heart  a  Separatist  instead  of  a 
very  unworthy  member  of  the  Puritan  party  ;  but  it  was  not 
long  before  his  real  character  appeared.  Certain  elements 
of  discontent,  as  has  been  seen,  were  to  be  found  in  the 
composition  of  the  colony ;  and  of  the  discontented  faction 
perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  was  John  Oldham,  a  man  of 
headstrong  temper,  who,  as  a  late  arrival  come  at  his  own 
charges  and  not  bound  by  the  general  agreement  for  com- 
mon labor  under  which  the  original  settlers  and  most  of 
their  successors  had  made  the  journey,  was  displeased  with 
the  limitations  placed  on  trade  by  the  Plymouth  government 
— limitations  designed  to  secure  as  much  as  possible  for 
the  payment  of  the  debt  for  which  so  many  in  the  com- 
munity were  jointly  liable.  In  company  with  Oldham  and 
a  few  others,  possibly  among  them  Roger  Conant,  the 
future  founder  of  Salem,  Lyford  now  "  set  up  a  publick 
meeting  aparte,  on  ye  Lord's  day,"  for  worship  as  a  Puri- 
tan minister  of  the  Church  of  England.     A  rather  high- 


EARLY  STRCGGLES.  J  I 

handed  seizure  of  letters  from  these  malcontents  to  the  mer- 
chant-partners in  London  by  Governor  Bradford  showed 
that  they  were  actively  attempting  the  overthrow  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  Leyden  Pilgrims,  and  were  anxious  to 
prevent  the  arrival  of  those  who  had  been  left  behind  in 
Holland  but  who  were  looking  eagerly  across  the  sea.  In 
view  of  these  evident  attempts  to  stir  up  trouble  for  the 
Pilgrims,  and  certain  revelations  as  to  Lyford's  previous 
immoral  life,  both  Lyford  and  Oldham  were  expelled  from 
the  little  community. 

The  news  of  the  rejection  of  the  unworthy  Lyford  pre- 
cipitated a  quarrel  among  the  merchant-partners,  many  of 
whom  were  disheartened  over  the  comparatively  meager 
financial  prospects  of  the  enterprise ;  and  after  some  nego- 
tiation, to  the  great  joy  of  the  Pilgrims,  the  London  mer- 
chants, with  whom  they  had  been  so  unsatisfactorily  yoked, 
sold  out  in  1626  all  interest  in  the  colony  to  the  colonial 
leaders  for  the  onerous  sum  of  ;:^i8oo,  to  be  paid  in  nine 
annual  installments.  Thus  at  last  wholly  their  own  mas- 
ters, though  still  burdened  with  a  large  debt,  the  Plym- 
outh Pilgrims  determined  to  bring  over  to  the  colony 
their  former  associates  who  had  remained  at  Leyden  and 
whose  coming  had  been  so  much  desired.  As  a  result, 
two  companies  were  brought  over,  one  in  1629,  the  other 
in  1630,  in  all  about  sixty  persons,  at  the  expense  of  those 
to  whom  they  came. 

But  the  man  of  all  others  whom  they  would  have  been 
glad  to  welcome  was  no  longer  of  the  living :  John  Robin- 
son had  died  at  Leyden  on  March  i,  1625  (N.  S.).  It  was 
no  feigned  sorrow  that  the  lonely  Plymouth  settlers  felt 
for  him,  and  it  must  have  been  with  a  feeling  of  almost 
filial  bereavement  that  they  thought  of  him  as  no  longer 
a  possible  member  of  their  earthly  fellowship.  For,  taken 
all  in  all,  Robinson  was  the  greatest  of  the  Separatists. 


72  THE    CONGREGATIONA LISTS.  [Chap.  in. 

His  originality  as  a  thinker  was  not  equal  to  that  of 
Browne,  but  in  every  other  respect  he  was  the  superior 
of  that  erratic  leader.  He  was  not  called  to  the  test  of 
martyrdom  as  were  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  and  Penry. 
But  he  was  vastly  better  fitted  than  they  to  be  a  guide 
in  a  movement  requiring  patience,  forbearance,  and  union. 
He  was  no  mean  controversialist,  his  writings  made  him 
looked  upon  as  the  representative  Separatist  of  his  gener- 
ation ;  yet  his  chief  power  was  his  capacity  to  mold  those 
who  came  under  his  personal  influence.  The  Pilgrims  who 
crossed  the  ocean  and  founded  Plymouth  were  strong 
men,  of  marked  indi\'iduality,  yet  they  and  their  colony 
bore  permanently  the  stamp  of  Robinson's  forceful  train- 
ing. There  was  in  him  a  quality  of  charity  and  tolerance 
in  marked  contrast  to  the  Separatist  leaders  before  him, 
which  led  him  into  kindly  relations  with  the  Dutch  churches 
as  far  as  they  would  permit,  and  which  softened  his  antip- 
athy to  the  Church  of  England  every  year  that  he  lived. 
Nor  was  his  conception  of  his  own  powers  in  his  congre- 
gation autocratic,  like  that  of  Francis  Johnson.  Though 
he  failed  to  reach  the  full  democracy  of  Browne,  his  the- 
ory of  church  administration  was  more  democratic  than 
that  of  any  early  Congregational  leader  beside.  And  these 
qualities  became  in  a  measure  the  characteristics  of  the 
colony  of  which  he  was  truly  one  of  the  founders,  though 
he  never  set  foot  upon  its  soil. 

From  the  coming  of  the  Pilgrims  in  1620  to  the  arrival 
of  the  last  company  of  their  Leyden  associates  not  quite 
ten  years  later,  the  little  colony  grew  to  about  three  hun- 
dred members.  It  had  taken  firm  root,  it  had  maintained 
its  institutions,  it  had  passed  through  perils  of  famine, 
sickness,  opposition  in  England,  internal  discords,  the  dan- 
gers of  Indian  hostility,  and  the  worse  peril  of  the  lawless 
deeds  of  the  roueh  traders  and  adventurers  who  settled 


ROB/NSON'  AND  BREWSTER.  73 

about  Massachusetts  Bay  under  Weston,  Gorges,  and  Mor- 
ton at  various  times  from  1622  onward.  By  1630  the 
continuance  of  the  colony  seemed  fairly  assured,  while 
the  coming  of  the  new  forces  from  Leyden  made  it  more 
certain  than  it  had  been  during  the  early  years  of  struggle 
that  the  religious  element  would  permanently  dominate 
the  community.  But  already  the  great  Puritan  immigra- 
tion into  Massachusetts  had  begun  which  was  to  leave 
Plymouth,  hampered  by  its  sterile  soil  and  slow- growing 
population,  far  behind  in  the  material  development  of  New 
England;  but  on  which  Plymouth  was  to  do  its  best  mis- 
sionary work  in  fashioning  Puritanism  into  Congregation- 
alism. 

Through  these  years  of  sacrifice  and  struggle  till  1629, 
when  a  moderately  gifted  minister  was  procured  in  the 
person  of  Ralph  Smith,  the  Pilgrim  church  had  been  minis- 
tered to  by  Elder  Brewster.  The  merchant-partners  had 
sent  the  unworthy  Lyford  in  1624,  and  the  colonial  agent, 
Isaac  Allerton,  had  taken  it  upon  himself  to  bring  over 
the  mentally  distracted  Rogers  in  1628;  but  the  church 
preferred  to  listen  to  Brewster,  who,  though  refraining 
by  Robinson's  advice  from  administering  the  sacraments, 
"  taught  twise  every  Saboth,  and  yt  both  powerfully  and 
profitably,  to  y^  great  contentment  of  y^  hearers,  and  their 
comfortable  edification ;  yea,  many  were  brought  to  God 
by  his  ministrie."  A  letter  of  De  Rasieres,  the  Dutch 
chief-merchant  at  Fort  Amsterdam,  the  present  New 
York,  describing  a  visit  made  by  him  to  Plymouth  in 
1627,  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  meeting-house  and  con- 
gregation : 

"  Upon  the  hill  they  have  a  large  square  house,  with  a 
flat  roof,  made  of  thick-sawn  planks,  stayed  with  oak 
beams,  upon  the  top  of  which  they  have  six  cannons, 
which  shoot  iron  balls  of  four  and  five  pounds,  and  com- 


74  "THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  hi. 

mand  the  surrounding  country.  The  lower  part  they  use 
for  their  church,  where  they  preach  on  Sundays  and  the 
usual  holidays.  They  assemble  by  beat  of  drum,  each 
with  his  musket  or  firelock,  in  front  of  the  captain's 
[Myles  Standish's]  door;  they  have  their  cloaks  on,  and 
place  themselves  in  order,  three  abreast,  and  are  led  by  a 
sergeant  without  beat  of  drum.  Behind  comes  the  Gover- 
nor [William  Bradford],  in  a  long  robe;  beside  him,  on 
the  right  hand,  comes  the  preacher  [Elder  Brewster],  with 
his  cloak  on,  and  on  the  left  hand  the  captain,  with  his 
side-arms  and  cloak  on,  and  with  a  small  cane  in  his  hand  ; 
and  so  they  march  in  good  order,  and  each  sets  his  arms 
down  near  him." 

We  get  an  insight  into  this  Plymouth  meeting-house 
also  on  a  later  and  somewhat  special  occasion,  when  Plym- 
outh enjoyed  the  residence  of  two  ministers,  and  was  re- 
ceiving Governor  Winthrop  and  Rev.  John  Wilson  of  Bos- 
ton as  its  guests.     Winthrop  records  in  October,  1632  : 

"  On  the  Lord's  day  there  was  a  sacrament,  which  they 
did  partake  in ;  and,  in  the  afternoon,  Mr.  Roger  Williams 
[then  living  at  Plymouth]  (according  to  their  custom)  pro- 
pounded a  question,  to  which  the  pastor,  Mr.  [Ralph] 
Smith,  .spake  briefly;  then  Mr.  Williams  prophesied  [i.e., 
preached]  ;  and  after  the  governour  of  Plimouth  spake  to 
the  question ;  after  him  the  elder  [Brewster]  ;  then  some 
two  or  three  more  of  the  congregation.  Then  the  elder 
desired  the  governour  of  Massachusetts  and  Mr.  W^ilson 
to  speak  to  it,  which  they  did.  When  this  was  ended,  the 
deacon,  Mr.  Fuller,  put  the  congregation  in  mind  of  their 
duty  of  contribution ;  whereupon  the  governour  and  all 
the  rest  went  down  to  the  deacons'  seat,  and  put  into  the 
box,  and  then  returned." 

On  such  an  occasion  the  congregation  in  the  rude  can- 
non-topped meeting-house  at  Plymouth  might  well  feel 


THE  PLYMOUTH  CHURCH.  75' 

that  in  the  liberty  to  practice  the  polity  and  worship  in 
which  they  believed  they  had  their  reward  for  fidelity  to 
their  covenant  promise  "  to  walke  in  all  his  wayes  .  .  . 
w^hatsoever  it  should  cost  them  "  ;  and  what  it  had  cost, 
the  wind-swept  graveyard  and  the  rude  street  of  hewn- 
plank  houses  bore  mute  witness. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE   PURITAN   SETTLEMENT   OF   NEW   ENGLAND. — PURI 
TANISM    CONGREGATIONALIZED. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  the  struggles  and  sacrifices  by 
which  Congregationahsts  of  the  Separatist  type  brought 
their  institutions  from  England  through  Holland  to  the 
American  wilderness  have  been  passed  in  rapid  •  review. 
It  has  been  seen  that  the  Plymouth  colony,  after  ten  years 
of  contest  with  perils  within  and  without,  was  possessed 
of  a  population  of  about  three  hundred,  and  had  arrived 
at  a  condition  of  stability  which  promised  the  continuance 
of  its  institutions  in  church  and  state,  unless  disturbed  by 
influences  from  outside.  But  had  Plymouth  been  left  to 
its  slow  development  such  disturbance  must  almost  cer- 
tainly have  come.  Its  supply  of  immigrants  from  the 
Leyden  congregation  was  at  best  small,  and  by  1630  had 
practically  reached  its  limit ;  it  could  hope  for  little  direct 
increase  from  English  Separatists,  for  they  were  few  and 
poor ;  and  though  the  sobriety  and  industry  of  the  Pilgrim 
colony  had  enabled  it  to  make  head  against  the  ill-managed 
attempts  of  Weston,  Gorges,  and  Morton  to  found  inimical 
settlements  about  Massachusetts  Bay,  it  could  be  only  a 
matter  of  time  when  the  more  fertile  lands  about  the 
Charles  and  the  superior  fishing  privileges  of  Cape  Ann 
would  people  those  regions  with  Englishmen  more  in 
number  than  those  of  Plymouth,  who  would  inevitably 
force  the  Separatist  colony  into  conformity  with  their 
wishes,  should  the  principles  of  Plymouth  be  obnoxious 

76 


PURITANISM  NOT  SEPARATISM.  ^'J 

to  them.  That  the  work  of  Plymouth  was  preserved,  and 
that  the  larger  English  settlements,  when  they  came  to 
be  erected  on  New  England  soil,  were  friendly  rather  than 
hostile,  was  due  to  the  fact  that,  owing  to  causes  the  work- 
ing of  which  was  unforeseen  when  the  Pilgrims  crossed 
the  ocean,  the  great  Puritan  party  of  England,  within  less 
than  ten  years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth,  had  begun 
the  occupation  of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  force,  and,  in  spite 
of  its  opposition  to  Separatism  in  England,  had  come  into 
essential  ecclesiastical  harmony  with  the  Separatists  of  the 
New  World. 

Throughout  the  later  years  of  Elizabeth  and  the  reign 
of  the  first  of  the  Stuarts  the  two  types  of  Puritanism, 
noticed  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  volume,  continued  with- 
out any  very  sharp  discrimination,  since  the  opposition  of 
the  government  was  continually  driving  Puritans  of  every 
shade  to  more  and  more  radical  positions.  But  between 
even  the  most  advanced  Puritan  of  the  school  of  Cart- 
wright  and  the  Separatist  there  was  one  important  point 
of  disagreement.  Alike  in  doctrine,  both  extreme  Calvin- 
ists,  agreeing  also  that  the  Bible  is  the  ultimate  rule  of 
church  polity  as  well  as  the  final  test  of  faith,  both  ques- 
tioning the  rightfulness  of  the  ceremonies,  liturgy,  and 
government  of  the  Establishment,  they  differed  chiefly  in 
their  attitude  toward  that  church  itself.  To  the  Separatist 
of  the  type  of  Browne,  Barrowe,  or  Johnson,  it  was  an  anti- 
christian  imitation  of  the  true  church  of  God,  from  which 
duty  should  compel  a  Christian  to  withdraw  himself  as 
speedily  as  possible.  Robinson  and  Brewster,  indeed,  as 
they  advanced  in  years,  came  to  think  less  harshly  of  the 
legal  church,  but  even  they  regarded  it  as  a  body  from 
membership  in  which  a  Christian  man  should  hold  himself 
aloof.  But  to  the  extremest  Puritan  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  still  a  true  church,  though  in  error.      He  agreed 


78  THE    COXGREGATIOXALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

largely  with  the  Separatist  as  to  what  the  officers  of  the 
church  ought  to  be ;  he  felt  that  its  membership  ought  to 
be  purified,  for  Puritanism  was  above  all  a  movement  of 
ethical  power  anxious  that  men  should  live  godly  lives  ; 
but  he  clung  to  the  idea  of  a  national  church,  and  hoped 
that  its  purification  would  be  brought  about  by  the  assist- 
ance of  the  government.  And  if  this  was  true  of  the  ex- 
treme Puritan,  it  was  even  more  true  of  the  large  wing 
of  the  party  that  continued  in  the  attitude  which  had 
been  that  of  all  the  Puritans  before  Cartwright,  viewing 
the  service  as  marred  by  Catholic  ceremonies,  the  Prayer- 
Book  as  defaced  by  superstitious  prescriptions,  the  mem- 
bership of  the  church  as  in  sore  need  of  discipline  and 
its  ministry  of  education,  objecting  to  the  tyranny  of  the 
High  Commission  and  its  imposition  of  vestments  and 
rites,  and  looking  for  the  abolition  of  all  these  evils  from 
the  government,  without  going  so  far  as  to  join  with  the 
extremer  Puritans  in  condemning  Episcopacy  per  sc,  or 
the  Prayer- Book  as  a  whole. 

Nor  did  this  hope  of  general  reform  by  the  ci\'il  author- 
ity, cherished  by  all  types  of  Puritans,  appear  to  be  vain 
for  many  years  after  the  Puritan  movement  had  begun. 
True,  the  Puritans  were  frowned  upon  by  Elizabeth  and  im- 
prisoned by  Whitgift  and  other  bishops  under  her  encour- 
agement ;  but  all  through  the  reign  of  that  great  queen 
their  numbers  steadily  increased.  It  did  not  require  a 
long  memory  for  the  Puritan  to  recall  that  Henry  VHI. 
had  torn  the  church  from  Rome  and  given  it  an  Eng- 
lish Bible,  while  leaving  its  doctrines  essentially  Cath- 
olic ;  that  the  government  which  ruled  in  the  name  of 
P^dward  \''I.  had  gi\en  the  same  church  an  English  liturgy 
and  Protestant  articles ;  that  ]\Iar\'  had  led  the  waj-  back 
to  Rome ;  that  Elizabeth  had  brought  it  once  more  to  at 
least  partial  Protestantism ;  and  that  all  these  changes  had 


PURITAN  HOPES.  79 

been  concurred  in  by  Parliament  and  extended  at  once, 
in  theory  at  least,  to  the  remotest  hamlet  of  the  kingdom. 
Why  should  not  a  growing  party  feel  confident  that  the 
time  would  come,  if  not  under  Elizabeth,  yet  speedily, 
when  for  a  fifth  time  within  a  century  the  sovereign  and 
Parliament  would  once  more  undertake  the  reformation 
of  the  often  altered  Church  of  England,  and  make  it  more 
fully  what  the  Scriptures  taught  that  a  church  should  be? 
And  this  hope  seemed  the  better  grounded  because  Par- 
liament, while  not  yet  mainly  Puritan,  had  been  gaining 
rapidly  in  sympathy  with  Puritanism,  and  in  a  sense  of  its 
own  right  to  take  an  increasing  share  in  the  government 
of  the  nation,  during  the  closing  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 
It  was  with  this  hope  that  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
Puritan  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  approved  the 
Millenary  Petition,  with  which  James  I.  was  met  on  his 
way  up  to  London  to  take  possession  of  the  throne  vacated 
by  Elizabeth  in  1603.  This  prayer  did  not  ask  for  ex- 
tensive changes,  it  represented  the  wishes  of  the  moderate 
rather  than  the  extreme  Puritans ;  and  the  petitioners 
would  have  been  satisfied  could  they  have  secured  the 
abolition  of  the  surplice,  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  similar 
ceremonials,  together  with  non-residence  and  other  grave 
ministerial  faults,  and  the  change  of  a  few  passages  in  the 
Prayer-Book.  They  had  some  reason  to  hope,  in  spite 
of  the  efforts  which  James  had  made  in  his  Scotch  king- 
dom to  give  real  power  to  the  bishops,  to  whom  Scotch 
law  had  long  allowed  a  nominal  existence,  that  the  well- 
known  Calvinism  and  the  Presbyterian  training  of  the  new 
English  sovereign  would  incline  him  to  grant  what  they 
asked.  But  in  this  they  found  themselves  grievously  dis- 
appointed. In  the  Hampton  Court  Conference  of  January, 
1604,  which  resulted  from  this  petition,  and  where  these 
and  some  other  changes  desired  by  the  Puritans  were  de- 


8o  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

bated  before  and  by  the  king,  James  fully  committed  him- 
self to  the  Anglican  side.  His  great  desire  was  the  asser- 
tion of  his  own  authority,  and  he  was  shrewd  enough  to 
see  that  a  system  which  made  him  the  appointer  of  the 
bishops,  and  them  the  regulators  of  the  church,  gave  him 
a  power  which  had  never  been  his  in  Scotland — a  power 
which  would  be  impaired  just  in  proportion  as  concessions 
were  made  to  the  Puritans.  "  No  Bishop,  no  King,"  was 
the  "  short  Aphorisme  "  in  which  the  royalist  sympathizer 
Barlow  says  James  expressed  his  position  at  the  conference  ; 
and  his  hostility  to  all  proposed  changes  in  church  gov- 
ernment led  him  to  declare  that  Scotch  Presbyterianism 
"  as  wel  agreeth  with  a  Monarchy,  as  God  and  the  Deuill. 
Then  lack  &  Tom,  &  Will,  &  Dick,  shall  meete,  and  at 
their  pleasures  censure  me,  and  my  Councell,  and  all  our 
proceedinges."  To  the  Puritans,  who  had  treated  him  with 
the  greatest  respect  throughout  the  conference,  he  an- 
nounced :  "  I  shall  make  the  conforme  themselues,  or  I 
wil  harrie  them  out  of  the  land,  or  else  doe  worse."  No 
wonder  these  declarations  of  their  new  sovereign  were 
pleasing  to  the  bishops ;  but  were  it  not  told  by  the  sym- 
pathetic Dean  of  Chester,  one  could  hardly  believe  that 
any  member  of  that  order  could  have  exclaimed,  as  one 
did  with  delighted  servility,  that  **  hee  was  fully  perswaded, 
his  Maiestie  spake  by  the  instinct  of  tJie  spirite  of  God." 

This  triumph  of  the  High  Anglican  party  was  followed 
by  another.  The  Convocation  which  met  under  the  presi- 
denc}^  of  Bancroft,  then  Bishop  of  London,  in  the  summer 
following  the  Conference,  passed  a  series  of  stringent  can- 
ons enforcing  uniformity,  and  declaring  that  to  question 
the  apostolical  character  of  the  Church  of  England  in  its 
existing  form,  to  condemn  its  Prayer-Book,  rites,  and  cere- 
monies as  superstitions,  or  its  officers — such  as  archbishops, 
bishops,  deans,  or  archdeacons — as  repugnant  to  the  Word 


JAMES  AND    THE  PURITANS.  8 1 

of  God,  or  to  affirm  that  any  ministers  or  laymen  may  make 
rules  for  church  government  without  the  sanction  of  the 
king,  is  to  become  ipso  facto  excommunicate,  and  incapable 
of  restoration  to  communion  by  any  officer  less  in  rank 
than  the  archbishop  himself,  and  then  only  after  repent- 
ance and  a  public  revocation.  Under  the  stress  of  these 
stringent  regulations,  which  were  soon  promulgated  with 
the  royal  approval,  a  number  of  ministers,  estimated  by 
some  at  three  hundred,  were  driven  from  their  livings. 

Archbishop  Whitgift  died  in  February,  1604,  and  was 
succeeded  in  the  see  of  Canterbury  by  Bancroft,  who 
now  brought  the  jure  divino  theory  of  episcopacy  to  the 
highest  ecclesiastical  post  In  the  kingdom.  His  eleva- 
tion strengthened,  of  course,  all  the  forces  opposed  to 
Puritanism. 

But  while  Puritanism  thus  suffered  a  loss  of  influence 
over  the  administration  of  the  church,  rather  than  a  gain, 
through  the  accession  of  James  it  made  a  decided  advance 
in  another  quarter — the  English  Parliament.  Under  the 
Tudors  Parliament  had  reached  its  lowest  ebb  of  power. 
The  destruction  of  the  old  noble  families  during  the  War 
of  the  Roses  had  removed  from  Parliament  that  which  had 
been  Its  main  strength  In  the  Lancastrian  days ;  it  required 
several  generations  for  the  power  of  the  landed  gentry  to 
develop  sufficiently  to  raise  the  lower  House  to  something 
of  the  importance  which  had  once  belonged  to  the  upper. 
It  was  during  the  reigns  of  the  five  Tudor  sovereigns  that 
this  transfer  of  the  parliamentary  center  of  gravity  took 
place,  and  while  it  was  in  process  parliamentary  independ- 
ence amounted  to  little.  But  before  the  close  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign  the  strength  of  the  Commons  was  consider- 
able ;  and  If  it  was  not  much  exercised  In  opposition  to 
the  will  of  a  popular  sovereign  such  as  the  great  queen 
was,  the  latent  forces  were  there  which  would  be  sure  to 


82  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

rise  into  strengtli  when  resisted  by  a  king  who  was  un- 
popular. And  James,  through  his  arbitrary  assertions  of 
his  claims,  alienated  his  first  Parliament,  that  of  1604. 
He  sought  to  interfere  in  the  election  of  members,  he 
pressed  measures  for  a  union  with  Scotland  which  the 
Commons  regarded  with  suspicion,  he  quarreled  with  the 
Commons  as  to  whether  they  were  a  "  court  of  record  " 
or  no,  and  thus  roused  a  high  degree  of  irritation.  This 
opening  Parliament  of  his  reign  was  not  predominantly 
Puritan,  but  it  was  sufficiently  under  Puritan  influence  to 
believe  that  some  of  the  reforms  desired  by  the  Puritans 
might  wisely  have  been  granted.  And  with  the  begin- 
nings of  parliamentary  opposition  to  the  king  the  religious 
and  the  political  opponents  of  the  arbitrariness  of  the  crown 
naturally  recognized  that  they  were  in  a  measure  fight- 
ing the  same  battle ;  the  Puritan  way  of  thinking  inclined, 
moreover,  as  truly  toward  the  limitation  of  royal  absolu- 
tism by  precedent  and  by  law  as  the  High  Anglican  to  assert 
the  royal  supremacy.  As  the  reign  of  James  went  on  the 
Commons  came  into  more  and  more  hearty  sympathy  with 
the  religious  ideas  of  the  Puritans.  James's  own  feeling 
had  been  right,  that  Puritanism,  like  Scotch  Presbyterian- 
ism,  "  as  wel  agreeth  with  a  Monarchy  " — as  he  wished  a 
monarchy  to  be — "  as  God  and  the  Deuill." 

The  reign  thus  begun  in  hostility  to  the  Puritans,  and  to 
the  spirit  of  constitutional  government  which  soon  came 
into  full  alliance  with  Puritanism,  went  on  with  increas- 
ing bitterness,  though  not  always  with  increasing  severity, 
toward  the  Puritan  party.  Under  Bancroft  the  repress- 
ive policy  of  Whitgift  was  continued  and  strengthened ; 
but  George  Abbot,  Bancroft's  successor  in  the  see  of  Can- 
terbury from  161 1  to  1633,  was  a  pronounced  Calvinist, 
in  some  degree  sympathetic  with  the  Puritans,  and  willing 
to  overlook  some  departure  from  the  prescribed  vestments 


JAMES  AND  PARLIAMENT.  83 

and  ceremonies.  During  his  early  archbishopric,  till  the 
rise  of  Laud  and  his  school,  the  Puritans  felt  more  encour- 
agement, though  they  at  no  time  obtained  the  favor  of 
the  king.  With  Parliament  James  fell  into  more  and  more 
hopeless  quarrel.  The  nation  as  a  whole  looked  upon 
Spain  as  its  natural  enemy;  its  strong  hatred  of  Catholi- 
cism feared  any  alliance  with  Spanish  interests ;  but  the 
king  hoped  to  promote  the  peace  of  Europe  and  fill  his 
depleted  treasury  by  effecting  a  marriage  between  his  son 
and  a  Spanish  princess — a  hope  which  the  diplomacy  of 
Spain  used  for  years  to  tie  the  hands  of  the  English  Gov- 
ernment when  all  England  except  a  few  extreme  royalists 
and  Catholics  were  longing  to  go  to  the  aid  of  German 
Protestantism,  struggling  from  16 18  onward  in  the  death- 
grapple  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Nor  was  James's  home 
policy  more  representative  of  the  best  feeling  of  England 
than  his  foreign.  "Corruption  was  less  concealed  in  his 
court  than  in  that  of  his  immediate  predecessors ;  succes- 
sive favorites,  Carr  and  Villiers,  with  no  other  claim  to 
elevation  than  the  fancy  of  the  king,  dispensed  the  royal 
favors ;  unusual  taxes  were  imposed  by  royal  order ;  and 
monopolies  for  manufacture  and  trade  were  granted  which 
were  popularly  supposed  to  be  enormously  profitable,  and 
which  angered  the  people  against  their  possessors.  Parlia- 
ment disliked  James's  administration  at  home  and  abroad, 
in  church  and  state  alike,  and  the  quarrel  culminated*  in 
162 1  and  1622  in  the  royal  prohibition  that  the  Commons 
should  discuss  affairs  of  state — a  prohibition  which  was 
met  by  the  famous  declaration  that  all  concerns  of  church 
and  state  were  proper  subjects  of  parliamentary  debate, 
and  that  in  their  consideration  every  member  should  have 
freedom  of  speech.  James  expressed  his  opinion  of  this 
assertion  of  right  by  tearing  the  page  on  which  it  was  re- 
corded from  the  journal  of  the  Commons  with  his  own 


84  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

hand,  declaring,  as  he  did  so:  "I  will  govern  according  to 
the  common  weal,  but  not  according  to  the  common  will." 

All  these  events,  and  especially  the  proposed  Spanish 
marriage  and  the  non-interference  in  behalf  of  the  hard- 
pressed  Protestants  of  Germany,  strengthened  Puritanism 
and  gave  it  a  hold  on  the  national  affection  which  it  had 
never  enjoyed  under  Elizabeth.  As  the  average  English- 
man saw  James  agree,  in  1623,  that  if  his  son  should  marry 
the  Spanish  princess  the  future  queen  should  have  public 
Catholic  worship  to  which  every  man  might  have  unmo- 
lested access,  that  Catholics  everywhere  in  the  kingdom 
should  have  freedom  of  worship  in  private  houses,  and 
that  the  children  of  the  proposed  marriage  should  be  under 
their  mother's  charge  till  ten  years  of  age  and  hence  have 
their  early  training  in  the  Roman  faith,  no  wonder  he  felt 
that  the  party  which  maintained  the  most  positive  type  of 
Protestantism  at  home  and  which  would  go,  if  it  could,  to 
the  aid  of  oppressed  Protestants  abroad  was  the  party  for 
him,  rather  than  that  which  exalted  royal  absolutism  and 
preached  the  doctrine  of  unquestioning  obedience  to  the 
behests  of  so  unrepresentative  a  king.  Nor  was  this 
feeling  of  the  common  Englishman  lessened  when,  after 
his  brief  period  of  joy  over  the  failure  of  the  Spanish  mar- 
riage negotiations,  he  saw  the  heir  to  the  throne  betrothed 
to  the  daughter  of  the  king  of  France  under  an  agreement 
pledging  nearly  as  great  concessions  to  English  Catholics 
as  had  been  offered  to  propitiate  Spain. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  when  James  died,  in  1625,  he 
left  the  affairs  of  his  kingdom  in  a  situation  which  only 
the  wisest  and  most  conciliatory  statesmanship  could  mas- 
ter, and  he  left  them  to  an  obstinate,  self-willed  young 
man — Charles  I. — who,  though  outwardly  more  dignified 
than  his  father  had  been,  had  an  evil  trait  not  markedly 
present   in   the   older   Stuart    king,   a   capacity   to   make 


THE   POLICY  OF  CHARLES.  85 

promises  which  he  never  intended  to  fulfill ;  and  who  was, 
if  anything,  more  persuaded  than  James  of  the  divine 
authority  of  kings.  Such  a  king  could  only  make  matters 
worse. 

The  accession  of  Charles  was  followed  by  his  marriage 
to  the  French  Catholic  princess ;  the  establishment  of  her 
Catholic  chapel,  which  soon  became  a  popular  place  of 
resort ;  and  the  loan  of  English  ships  to  Richelieu  to  fight 
against  French  Protestants  as  part  of  the  price — in  justice 
to  Charles  be  it  said  an  unexpected  part  of  the  price — of 
the  French  marriage.  His  first  Parliament  he  dissolved 
after  it  had  sat  for  less  than  two  months  in  the  first  year 
of  his  reign  because  the  Commons  refused  to  vote  money 
which  they  believed  would  be  squandered  by  the  all- 
powerful  favorite,  George  Villiers,  who  as  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham was  Charles's  most  trusted  adviser.  His  second 
Parliament  he  sent  home  in  1626  to  save  the  favorite  from 
impeachment.  His  third  Parliament  wrung  from  him  the 
famous  "Petition  of  Right"  in  June,  1628,  but  was  dis- 
solved in  March  of  the  following  year  because  it  attempted 
to  enforce  the  Puritan  hatred  of  Catholicism  and  Armin- 
ianism,  and  to  prevent  the  levying  of  taxes  unauthorized 
by  the  Commons.  For  the  next  eleven  years  Charles 
reigned  without  Parliaments — a  time  of  oppression  which, 
while  it  was  marked  by  evidences  of  commercial  prosperity 
and  external  good  order,  was  one  which  made  good  men 
despair  of  the  future  of  English  liberty,  and  so  fed  the 
flames  of  dissatisfaction  that  when  they  burst  forth  once 
more  they  destroyed  for  a  time  the  whole  fabric  of  royal 
absolutism  which  had  been  so  laboriously  erected. 

The  hostility  to  Arminianism  displayed  by  the  Parlia- 
ments of  the  reign  of  Charles  was  a  manifestation  of  Puri- 
tan opposition  to  the  change  in  doctrinal  position  which 
had  been  going  on  among  the  High  Anglicans  since  the 


86  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

beginning  of  the  reign  of  James.  Arbitrary  as  their  dom- 
ineering poHcy  was,  it  would  be  an  injustice  to  the  bish- 
ops and  clergy  who  supported  Charles  in  the  opening 
years  of  his  rule  to  fail  to  recognize  that  they  now  repre- 
sented not  merely  a  tyrannous  insistence  on  ceremonial 
and  governmental  uniformity  in  the  church,  they  stood 
in  a  measure  for  doctrinal  freedom.  The  older  Anglicans, 
like  Whitgift,  had  no  serious  doctrinal  dispute  with  the 
Puritans — they  were  alike  Calvinists.  But  there  was  an 
intensity  in  the  Calvinism  of  the  Puritans  which  made 
them  endeavor  to  strengthen  and  enforce  the  Calvinism 
they  found  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  To  Puritan  think- 
ing, right  views  regarding  the  divine  decrees  were. essential 
to  all  true  Protestantism  and  all  successful  resistance  to 
Rome.  This  feeling  had  led  the  Puritans  at  the  Hampton 
Court  Conference  vainly  to  propose  the  introduction  into 
the  Articles  of  the  English  Church  of  the  Lambeth  Articles 
of  1595,  which,  though  approved  by  Whitgift  and  others 
of  the  Anglican  party  at  the  time  of  their  composition, 
are  the  most  extreme  statement  of  Calvinism  ever  put 
forth  with  any  show  of  authority  in  England.  But,  con- 
temporary with  the  reign  of  James,  the  Arminian  contro- 
versy ran  its  violent  course  in  Holland.  That  discussion 
awakened  much  interest  in  the  English  Church,  which 
was  represented  by  commissioners  at  the  Synod  of  Dort 
in  1618-19;  and  though  James  approved  the  Calvinistic 
decisions  of  that  body,  the  Arminian  theories  there  con- 
demned impressed  a  section  of  the  High  Anglican  clergy- 
men, and,  through  the  influence  of  William  Laud,  it  is 
said,  even  modified  the  theology  of  the  old  king  himself. 

Under  Charles,  Arminianism  became  increasingly  char- 
acteristic of  the  High  Church  party;  and  Arminianism  in 
England  under  the  Stuarts,  whatever  it  may  have  signified 
in  Holland  or  in  the  Wesleyan  revival,  while  implying  an 


RISE    OF  ARMINIANISM.  87 

increase  of  intellectual  freedom  in  doctrinal  matters,  was 
characterized  also  by  a  less  strenuous  Protestantism,  by  a 
willingness  to  coquet  with  some  features  of  Catholicism, 
and  a  decreased  sympathy  with  the  Calvinistic  churches 
of  the  Continent,  with  which  the  Church  of  England  had 
thus  far  held  itself  in  cordial  fellowship.  During  the  reign 
of  James,  also,  the  jure  divino  view  of  episcopacy,  intro- 
duced by  Bancroft  and  Bilson  in  the  later  years  of  Eliza- 
beth, had  become  that  of  the  Anglican  party ;  and  by  the 
accession  of  Charles  to  the  throne  the  devotion  of  that 
party  to  the  royal  absolutism  had  risen  to  an  absurd  height 
under  the  stimulus  of  constant  royal  favor  and  increasing 
opposition  from  the  majority  of  the  nation.  The  High 
Church  party  stood  chiefly  by  the  favor  of  the  king,  and 
it  is  not  surprising  that  its  members  exalted  the  hand  that 
upheld  them. 

Over  against  this  Arminianism  and  absolutism  of  the 
High  Anglican  party,  Puritanism  in  the  church  and  in 
Parliament  desired  absolute  uniformity  of  belief.  Neither 
of  the  parties  favored  toleration,  but  the  unity  sought  by 
the  one  was  not  that  looked  for  by  the  other.  To  the 
Puritan  the  prime  necessity  was  unity  in  acceptance  and 
in  strengthening  of  the  historic  Calvinism  of  the  English 
Church ;  to  the  Anglican  it  was  a  submission  to  the  regu- 
lations imposed  by  a  divinely  authorized  king  and  a  God- 
appointed  order.  To  the  Puritan  the  spiritual  and  doctri- 
nal condition  of  England  was  the  all-important  matter;  to 
the  Anglican  its  external  uniformity  and  submission  to 
constituted  authority.  The  Puritan  would  have  men  be- 
lieve alike ;  the  Anglican  would  have  them  worship  alike. 

This  feeling  that  the  Protestantism  of  England  was 
threatened  by  doctrinal  innovation  as  well  as  its  liberty 
imperiled  by  the  assertion  of  royal  absolutism,  induced 
Parliament,    now   decidedly   Puritan,    to   proceed   against 


88  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

some  of  the  High  Church  party.  In  1625  the  Commons 
reproved  Dr.  Richard  Montagu  for  denying  that  Calvinism 
was  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England  and  speaking 
favorably  of  Rome — a  reproof  which  they  soon  carried  to 
the  extreme  of  imprisonment.  The  king's  answer  was 
the  appointment  of  Montagu  first  to  a  chaplaincy  and 
later  (1628)  to  the  bishopric  of  Chichester.  Nor  were  the 
voices  of  the  Anglican  royalists  less  loudly  raised  in  favor 
of  the  king's  claims,  or  his  recognition  of  their  services 
less  exasperating  to  the  Puritans.  In  1627,  when  Charles 
was  endeavoring  to  raise  taxes  without  the  consent  of 
Parliament,  Dr.  Robert  Sybthorpe,  vicar  of  Brackley, 
printed  a  sermon  in  which  he  declared  that  subjects  were 
not  authorized  to  resist  even  if  the  royal  command  was 
counter  to  the  laws  of  God  or  nature,  or  impossible  of 
fulfillment.  These  views  were  too  exaggerated  for  the 
Puritanism  of  Archbishop  Abbot  to  approve  their  publi- 
cation ;  but  the  Bishop  of  London  did  so,  and  they  were  so 
acceptable  to  the  king  that  Abbot  was  disgraced  for  his 
opposition,  and  practically  set  aside.  About  the  same 
time  Rev.  Roger  Manwaring  declared  in  a  sermon  before 
the  king  that  Parliament  was  a  cipher,  and  that  the  king's 
command,  without  the  consent  of  Parliament,  bound  the 
subject  to  pay  any  tax  imposed,  on  pain  of  eternal  dam- 
nation. The  royal  approval  of  Manwaring' s  theory  was 
expressed  by  ecclesiastical  advancement.  In  1628  Charles 
and  his  bishops  published  a  declaration,  still  prefixed  to 
the  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England,  affirming  that 
in  order  that  unprofitable  discussion  should  cease  these 
Articles  were  henceforth  to  be  taken  in  their  literal  mean- 
ing, and  no  private  interpretation  should  be  put  upon 
them.  In  one  sense  this  declaration  tended  to  theological 
liberty ;  but  its  real  purport  was  to  bar  the  Puritans  from 
insisting  on  a  Calvinistic  interpretation  of  them  as  the  only 


WILLIAM  LAUD.  89 

admissible  one,  and  thus  to  aid  in  the  spread  of  theological 
views  which  a  majority  of  the  nation  deemed  inimical  to 
Protestantism. 

The  most  conspicuous  illustration  of  opposition  to  Puri- 
tanism and  of  what  was  best  and  worst  in  High  Anglican- 
ism was  William  Laud,  who  was  Charles's  most  trusted 
clerical  adviser  from  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  and  after 
the  assassination  of  Buckingham  in  1628  Charles's  right 
hand  in  the  ecclesiastical  and  largely  in  the  civil  adminis- 
tration of  the  kingdom.  Laud  was  born  in  1573,  and  had 
his  education  in  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  where  he  was 
distinguished  for  his  anti- Puritan  sentiments.  Preferment 
came  to  him  slowly  at  first,  but  by  16 16,  when  he  be- 
came Dean  of  Gloucester,  he  was  one  of  the  most  marked 
and  influential  of  the  extreme  Anglicans.  In  1621  James 
made  him  bishop  of  St.  David's;  1624  saw  him  a  member 
of  the  High  Commission;  in  1626  he  became  Bishop  of 
Bath  and  Wells  ;  and  now  in  1628  he  was  raised  by  Charles 
to  the  see  of  London,  the  most  important  and  most  Puri- 
tanly  inclined  of  the  bishoprics  of  England,  and  only  less 
in  influence  than  the  archiepiscopate  of  Canterbury,  to 
which  Charles  advanced  him  in  1633. 

Laud  was  unquestionably  sincere,  devout,  mentally 
acute,  of  indefatigable  energy,  a  lover  of  learning,  and 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  church  as  he  understood 
them ;  but  he  was  also  narrow-minded,  cruel,  and  domi- 
neering. He  never  learned  that  conciliation  and  forbear- 
ance are  sometimes  desirable;  he  believed  that  the  best 
method  of  securing  uniformity  was  by  crushing  opposition 
by  force.  He  regarded  unity  in  form  and  worship  as  of  the 
highest  importance,  and  in  his  willingness  to  persecute 
those  who  differed  from  him  he  resembled  the  pre- Refor- 
mation prelates  whose  ideals  of  the  church  were  so  largely 
his  own.     A  firm  believer  in  the  necessity  of  the  episco- 


90  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

pate  and  of  apostolic  succession,  a  representative  of  the 
anti-Calvinistic  theology  of  the  High  Church  party,  and  a 
devoted  supporter  of  the  royal  absolutism,  Laud  was  more 
than  the  chief  exponent  of  the  views  of  his  party,  he  was 
a  leader  such  as  few  men  in  the  history  of  the  English 
Church  have  been.  To  his  mind  there  came  the  pleasing 
but  unhistoric  conception  that  subjection  to  the  papacy 
and  the  Reformation  were  but  incidents  in  the  life  of  the. 
Church  of  England ;  that  that  organization  had  presented 
substantially  the  same  doctrine  at  all  times  in  fundamen- 
tals, and  that  those  fundamentals  were  better  preserved  in 
the  Roman  Church,  in  spite  of  its  errors  and  its  subjection 
to  the  papacy  which  he  denounced,  than  in  thenon-pre- 
latical  churches  of  the  Continent.  A  strong  sacramenta- 
rian,  though  he  did  not  materially  differ  with  Calvin  re- 
garding the  nature  of  Christ's  presence  in  the  Supper,  he 
attached  greater  importance  to  the  sacraments  than  the 
Calvinistic  Reformers  had  done.  Above  all  he  was  a  rit- 
ualist, whose  piety  craved  a  showy  service,  whose  mental 
habit  attached  great  importance  to  bowings  at  the  name 
of  Jesus,  who  saw  irreverence  in  placing  the  communion 
table  in  the  body  of  the  church  as  the  Puritans  did,  and  de- 
sired to  rail  it  off  at  the  end  as  the  altar  had  been  in  Roman 
days  ;  while  his  martinet-like  spirit  inclined  him  to  force  all 
that  he  deemed  fitting  in  worship  on  clergy  and  people,  to 
whom  these  changes  seemed  nothing  but  a  return  to  Rome. 
Laud  was  the  first  of  Anglo-Catholics ;  he  was  not  a  Ro- 
man Catholic.  But  it  is  no  wonder  that  neither  the  Puri- 
tans nor  the  Roman  Catholics  of  his  age  understood  him, 
and  that  both  parties  sincerely  believed  that  his  object  was 
to  lead  the  Church  of  England  back  to  Rome — a  belief 
which  led  to  the  offer  to  him  on  two  occasions  of  a  cardi- 
nal's hat.  If  it  is  true  that  his  views  of  worship  and  of 
the  sacraments  have  largely  become  those  of  the  English 


LAUD  AND    THE   PURITANS.  9 1 

Church,  it  is  also  true,  as  Gardiner  has  remarked,  that  this 
has  been  brought  about  "  by  a  total  abandonment  of 
Laud's  methods.  What  had  been  impossible  to  effect  in 
a  church  to  the  worship  of  which  every  person  in  the  land 
was  obliged  to  conform  became  possible  in  a  church  which 
any  one  who  pleased  was  at  liberty  to  abandon." 

But  to  Laud's  thinking,  the  enforcement  of  conformity 
seemed  not  at  all  impossible,  and  he  set  himself  to  the 
work,  now  that  he  was  master  of  the  great  diocese  of 
London,  with  a  vigor  that  made  many  a  Puritan  despair 
of  the  religious  future  of  England.  To  the  Puritan  the 
spiritual  elevation  of  the  people  seemed  impossible  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  learned,  preaching  ministry,  inculcating 
Scriptural  doctrines,  reproving  sins,  and  above  all  setting 
forth  an  active  type  of  religious  life,  of  which  conversion 
by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God  was  the  source,  and  a 
strenuous  morality  the  fruit.  In  order  to  secure  such  a 
ministry  the  Puritans  had  established  in  many  parishes 
what  were  known  as  "lectureships" — that  is,  pecuniary 
provision  was  made  by  which  a  preacher  of  Puritan  incli- 
nations, generally  in  priests'  orders  but  not  always  so,  could 
have  maintenance  and  "lecture  "  on  Sunday  afternoons  in 
parishes  where  the  incumbent  was  absent,  or  incompetent, 
or  obnoxious.  This  system  had  been  partially  tolerated 
by  Abbot,  though  in  1622  James  had  issued  orders  through 
Abbot  that  no  preacher  less  in  rank  than  a  dean  should 
discuss  predestination  or  grace  before  a  general  audience. 
As  these  subjects  were  uppermost  in  Puritan  thought,  the 
aim  of  the  order  was  distinctly  inimical  to  the  lectureship 
system.  To  Laud  the  lectures  were  intolerable,  and  he 
-set  himself  on  entering  on  his  diocese  of  London,  and  even 
more  when  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  their  suppression. 
By  Laud's  persuasion  Charles  issued  directions  that  after- 
noon sermons  should  be  reduced  to  mere  catechising  by 


92  THE   CONG  REG  A  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

question  and  answer,  and  that  every  lecture  must  be  pre- 
ceded by  the  service,  read  by  the  lecturer  in  surplice  and 
hood.  To  the  Puritan  this  hostility  of  Laud  and  the  king 
seemed  a  deprivation  of  the  means  of  salvation. 

Perhaps  even  more  impressive  to  the  ordinary  Puritan 
mind  than  these  general  orders  was  the  savage  relentless- 
ness  with  which  Laud  pursued  men  whose  only  offense 
was  that  they  spoke  what  half  the  nation  was  thinking,  and 
what  the  Puritan  believed  to  be  the  truth  of  God.  A 
universally  notorious  illustration  is  that  of  Alexander 
Leighton,  father  of  the  celebrated  Scotch  archbishop. 
Leighton  was  an  extreme  Cartwrightian  Puritan,  who 
printed  in  the  "month  wherein  Rochell  was  lost"  (Octo- 
ber, 1628)  a  fierce  outburst  against  the  bishops  and  the 
Catholic  queen,  entitled  "  Sions  Plea  against  the  Prelacie." 
The  book  was  a  burning  attack  upon  the  influences  which 
had  led  to  a  great  disaster  to  the  Protestant  cause  and  a 
great  disgrace  for  English  foreign  policy.  For  its  writing 
Leighton*  was  sentenced  by  the  Star- Chamber  Court  in 
June,  1630 — while  Laud  with  uncovered  head  gave  thanks 
to  God  for  the  decree — to  degradation  from  the  ministry, 
to  life  imprisonment,  to  the  hopelessly  exorbitant  fine  of 
i^  10,000,  to  the  pillory,  to  whipping,  to  the  loss  of  his  ears 
and  the  slitting  of  his  nose,  and  finally  to  branding  on  his 
cheeks  as  a  "  sower  of  sedition." 

Leighton's  attack  upon  the  authorities  of  the  church 
had  been  bitter,  and  his  punishment  merciless.  He  cer- 
tainly was  an  extremist.  Possibly,  therefore.  Laud's  more 
usual  methods  of  harassing  Puritanism  and  enforcing 
uniformity  may  be  better  understood  from  a  much  less 
flagrant  case,  where  the  minister  was  no  fanatic,  but  was 
notably  learned,  spiritual-mnided,  able,  and  devoted — a 
man  who  might  well  be  deemed  an  ornament  to  any 
communion.     Thomas  Hooker,  later  one  of  the  founders 


LAUD  AND    THE  PURITANS.  93 

of  Connecticut,  had  filled  for  two  years,  when  Laud  be- 
came Bishop  of  London,  a  notably  successful  lectureship  at 
Chelmsford.  His  opinions  on  the  great  problems  which 
agitated  the  state  in  those  stormy  years  had  no  doubt  been 
positive,  but  his  chief  activity  had  been  the  preaching  of 
the  doctrines  of  grace  in  a  deep,  spiritual,  searching,  and 
intensely  Calvinistic  treatment  of  the  relations  of  the  soul 
to  God.  A  man  of  profound  piety,  he  had  preeminently 
sought  the  conversion  and  upbuilding  of  his  hearers.  This 
preaching,  though  its  themes  contravened  the  orders  issued 
by  James  in  1622,  was  received  with  great  popular  favor 
— as  one  of  Laud's  agents  wrote  in  1629:  "Our  people's 
pallats  grow  so  out  of  tast,  yt  noe  food  contents  them  but 
of  M^  Hooker's  dressing."  But  Laud  had  been  less  than 
a  year  Bishop  of  London  before  his  hand  was  stretched 
out  against  Hooker,  and  the  Chelmsford  lecturer  was 
under  bonds  for  appearance  when  wanted.  Renewed 
preaching  brought  him  in  a  few  months  more  again  to 
Laud's  attention.  But  now  his  beneficed  neighbors  among 
the  clergy  to  the  number  of  forty-nine,  and,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note,  the  rector  of  Chelmsford,  in  whose  parish  he 
had  labored,  petitioned  for  his  retention  as  a  man  "  for 
doctryne,  orthodox,  and  life  and  conversation  honest,  and 
for  Jiis  disposition  peaceable,  no  wayes  turbulent  or  fac- 
tious." A  few  days  later  forty-one  of  the  ministers  of  the 
county  sent  in  a  counter-petition  asking  that  uniformity 
be  enforced.  Hooker  had  to  abandon  the  lectureship,  and 
now  taught  school  for  a  few  months,  with  John  Eliot  as 
his  assistant ;  but  even  this  change  of  occupation  did  not 
shelter  him  from  Laud.  Li  July,  1630,  he  was  ordered  to 
appear  before  the  High  Commission ;  but  his  friends  at 
Chelmsford  paid  his  forfeited  bail,  and  he  escaped  with 
difficulty  to  Holland.  Certainly  when  such  men  as  Hooker 
were  forced  to  abandon  the  pulpit — and  his  case  was  neither 


94  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

striking  nor  exceptional — it  was  paying  pretty  dear  for  cer- 
emonial uniformity ;  and  the  prohibition  of  discussion  of 
those  doctrines  which  the  Puritans  deemed  essential  to  all 
spiritual  growth  was  a  sorry  way  to  advance  theological 
freedom  at  a  time  when  the  chief  need  of  the  Establish- 
ment was  an  educated  and  worthy  ministry,  a  better  in- 
structed membership,  and  a  stricter  moral  life.  No  won- 
der Milton  cried  out  in  his  noble  lament  for  Lycidas,  nine 
years  after  Laud  became  Bishop  of  London  and  eight 
years  after  Charles  had  put  in  force  his  determination  to 
rule  without  Parliament : 

Last  came,  and  last  did  go, 

The  pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake ; 

Two  massy  keys  he  bore  of  metals  twain, 

(The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain,) 

He  shook  his  mitered  locks,  and  stern  bespake : 

"  How  well  could  I  have  spared  for  thee,  young  swain, 

Enow  of  such  as  for  their  bellies'  sake 

Creep,  and  intrude,  and  climb  into  the  fold? 

Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make. 

Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast, 

And  shove  away  the  worthy  bidden  guest : 

The  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed. 

But,  swollen  with  wind  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw. 

Rot  inwardly  and  foul  contagion  spread : 

Besides  what  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 

Daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said." 

Under  such  circumstances  of  increasing  discouragement 
a  few  of  the  more  adventurous  of  the  Puritans  began  to 
look  across  the  Atlantic  with  the  thought  of  founding  on 
the  shores  of  a  new  continent  the  institutions  that  were 
denied  them  in  tlie  old.  This  inclination  was  doubtless 
stimulated  by  the  example  of  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims, 
whose  experiences,  told  in  Mourt's  "  Relation  "  and  Wins- 
low's  "  Good  Newes  from  New  England,"  were  given  to 


BEGINNINGS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  95 

the  English  public  in  1622  and  1624.  But  religious  con- 
siderations did  not  exclusively  control  the  first  Puritan 
motions  toward  the  settlement  of  Massachusetts.  That 
impulse  had  its  apparent  beginnings  in  the  south-of- 
England  borough  of  Dorchester,  where  Rev.  John  White,  a 
distinguished  Puritan,  was  rector.  From  all  this  coast  of 
England  vessels  resorted  annually  to  American  waters  for 
fishing;  and  as  larger  crews  could  be  employed  in  taking 
the  catch  than  were  required  for  the  homeward  voyage, 
the  thought  occurred  to  some  of  those  interested  in  the 
trade  that  a  permanent  settlement  could  be  formed  in  New 
England,  where  the  superfluous  fishermen  could  remain, 
and  where  supplies  could  be  raised  and  stored.  For  this 
purpose  a  Fishing  Company  was  organized  at  Dorchester 
through  White's  influence,  and  by  this  company  a  settle- 
ment was  begun  on  Cape  Ann  late  in  1623  or  early  in 
1624.  To  this  colony  Roger  Conant,  a  vigorous  Puritan, 
came  as  its  superintendent,  in  1625,  and  with  him  Rev. 
John  Lyford,  who  had  been  with  him  at  Plymouth,  and 
whose  experiences  in  the  Pilgrim  colony  have  already  been 
noted.  But  the  Cape  Ann  enterprise  was  unsuccessful, 
and  when  most  of  its  settlers  went  home  to  England  in 
1626,  Conant,  and  a  few  like-minded  men,  removed  to  the 
more  fertile  spot  which  was  afterward  known  by  the  name 
of  Salem. 

As  the  project  had  gone  on  White's  thoughts  had  grown 
broader,  and  he  now  determined  to  organize,  if  possible, 
a  Puritan  colony,  in  the  formation  of  which  religion  rather 
than  trade  should  be  a  prime  consideration.  To  this  end 
he  now  labored  to  enlist  Puritan  sympathy  and  obtain  a 
patent  which  would  give  a  legal  basis  for  his  new  enter- 
prise. In  both  attempts  he  was  successful.  The  Plym- 
outh (England)  Council,  a  body  of  which  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges  was  the  leading  spirit,  and  which  by  a  charter  of 


96  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

November,  1620,  claimed  jurisdiction  over  New  England, 
granted  by  a  patent  of  March  19,  1628,  such  portion  of 
its  territories  as  lay  between  three  miles  north  of  the  Mer- 
rimac  and  an  equal  distance  south  of  the  Charles  rivers  to 
a  Puritan  land  company  having  John  Endicott  as  one  of 
its  members.  Under  the  auspices  of  this  new  association 
Endicott  and  an  advance  guard  of  settlers  left  England 
in  the  summer  of  1628,  landing  at  Salem,  where  Conant 
had  been  for  about  two  years  a  resident,  on  the  6th  of 
September. 

The  enterprise  thus  launched  was  pushed  rapidly  on. 
Through  the  instrumentality  of  White  and  others,  Puritans 
from  all  over  England  were  interested,  and  new  members 
of  increasing  prominence  were  rapidly  added  to  the  com- 
pany. Influential  support  was  secured  at  court ;  whether 
Charles  I.  really  seriously  concerned  himself  with  what 
must  have  seemed  to  him  an  insignificant  colony  in  an 
out-of-the-way  part  of  the  world  may  be  doubtful ;  pos- 
sibly he  felt  that  a  Puritan  exodus  might  free  him  of  a  few 
of  his  opponents ;  but  through  the  influence  of  Lord  Dor- 
chester and  the  Earl  of  Warwick  the  king  granted  a  direct 
charter  to  this  enlarged  company — a  document  which  was 
sealed  on  March  4,  1629,  and  which  authorized  the  "  Gov- 
ernor and  Company  of  the  Mattachusetts  Bay,"  thuscreated, 
to  elect  officers,  admit  new  members,  and  make  laws  for  the 
administration  of  its  domain.  Thus  equipped  with  a  char- 
ter granting  extensive  privileges,  the  company  strongly 
attracted  Puritan  colonists,  so  that  within  a  few  months 
after  its  creation  a  large  reinforcement  was  sent  to  Salem, 
arriving  there  in  June,  1629.  Even  more  important  for 
the  future  of  the  enterprise  was  the  agreement  entered 
into  by  John  Winthrop,  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  Thomas 
Dudley,  Increase  Nowell,  Isaac  Johnson,  William  Pynchon, 
and  others  at  Cambridge,  August  26,  1629,  to  go  to  New 


BEGINNINGS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  97 

England  the  next  spring,  provided  the  government  and 
charter  of  the  company  should  be  transferred  to  Massa- 
chusetts. This  gave  the  undertaking  not  only  the  support 
of  men  of  character  and  position,  it  made  the  new  colony 
practically  a  semi- independent,  self-governing  state,  instead 
of  an  ordinary  corporation  for  the  development  of  a  new 
country  administered  by  a  board  in  England,  which  was 
doubtless  all  that  the  king  had  in  mind  when  the  charter 
was  granted,  if  that  act  caused  him  any  serious  thought 
at  all.  The  decision  to  make  the  company  wholly  domi- 
ciled in  New  England  led  to  the  election  of  John  Win- 
throp  to  the  governorship,  since  Matthew  Cradock,  the 
first  governor,  was  unable  to  emigrate ;  and  in  the  spring 
and  summer  of  1630  the  Puritan  exodus  ran  full  tide. 
Probably  at  least  a  thousand  persons  came  from  England 
to  Massachusetts  in  that  year  alone — more  than  three 
times  as  many  as  the  Plymouth  colony  numbered  after  ten 
years  of  struggle — and  by  1640,  when  the  advent  of  the 
Long  Parliament  and  the  evident  speedy  downfall  of  the 
tyranny  of  Charles  and  Laud  checked  Puritan  emigration, 
it  is  estimated  that  the  number  who  had  crossed  the  ocean 
had  risen  to  more  than  twenty  thousand.  The  summer 
of  1630  saw  the  settlement  of  Dorchester  by  a  company 
organized  into  church-estate  through  the  influence  of  Rev. 
John  White  before  leaving  England ;  and  the  same  weeks 
witnessed  the  beginnings  of  Winthrop  and  his  immediate 
following  at  Charlestown  and  Boston ;  while  at  the  same 
time  settlements  were  made  at  Watertown  and  elsewhere 
about  Massachusetts  Bay. 

These  emigrant  companies,  like  that  at  Plymouth,  all  ex- 
perienced a  period  of  disease  and  death  which  robbed  them 
of  many  of  their  best  members  within  a  few  weeks  of  their 
landing.  But  their  contrast  to  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims  in  all 
that  goes  to  make  for  worldly  esteem  and  probable  success 


98  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

was  extreme.  Their  membership  contained  men  of  humble 
position,  it  is  true,  but  their  leaders  were  from  good  station 
in  England,  many  of  them  of  the  country  gentry,  men  of 
wealth,  character,  and  education.  Their  ministers,  as  there 
will  be  ample  occasion  to  see,  were  the  peers  in  learning 
and  ability  of  any  in  the  Puritan  wing  of  the  Church  of 
England ;  they  were  men  reverenced  and  admired  not 
only  in  the  colonial  hamlets  to  which  they  came,  but  by 
wide  circles  in  the  home  land.  Probably  no  colony  in  the 
history  of  European  emigration  was  superior  to  that  of 
Massachusetts  in  wealth,  station,  or  capacity.  The  relig- 
ious motive,  ever  predominant  in  the  beginning  of  the 
enterprise,  had  enabled  it  to  draw  on  the  best  elements  of 
a  great  party  in  England,  and  to  attract  men  whom  no 
mean  or  ordinary  aims  would  have  drawn  across  the  sea. 
Religion  had  equally  animated  the  Plymouth  enterprise ; 
but  Plymouth  had  no  constituency  in  England  from  which 
to  draw  strength ;  its  Separatist  principles  had  been  de- 
spised in  the  home  land  by  Anglican  and  Puritan  alike,  and 
its  true-hearted  membership  had  come  from  the  humble 
Leyden  exiles,  or  the  equally  humble  occasional  emigrant 
sent  directly  from  England  by  the  merchant-partners  or 
self-impelled  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  struggling  com- 
munity. It  had  a  few  men  of  ability,  like  Brewster  and 
Bradford  and  Winslow,  it  had  men  of  character  in  abun- 
dance ;  but  it  was  wholly  deficient  in  men  of  wealth  or 
university  education,  while  its  pulpit,  never  conspicuou.-ly 
strong  after  Robinson  had  been  left  at  Leyden,  was  filled 
by  no  higher  officer  than  a  ruling  elder  when  the  Puritan 
colonists  began  their  work  at  Salem. 

Nor  were  these  Puritan  emigrants  men  easily  impressi- 
ble by  outside  influences  or  tolerant  of  dissent.  Puritan- 
ism crossed  the  ocean  with  no  such  general  intention  of 
seeking  civil  and  religious  liberty  as  has  often  been  at- 


CHARACTER    OF  IMMIGRATION.  99 

tributed  to  it.  As  compared  with  the  Puritans,  the  Pil- 
grims of  Plymouth  indeed  showed  a  considerable  measure 
of  toleration,  perhaps  because  of  Dutch  example,  more 
probably  by  reason  of  the  kindly  spirit  infused  into  them 
by  Robinson  and  maintained  by  Brewster,  Bradford,  and 
Winslow — a  spirit  the  more  readily  cherished  on  account 
of  the  comparative  feebleness  of  the  colony.  But  neither 
Pilgrims  nor  Puritans  had  any  thought  of  establishing  lib- 
erty for  men  to  do  as  they  please ;  nor  would  any  general 
toleration,  such  as  we  now  justly  value,  have  furnished 
motives  definite  enough  to  have  led  our  ancestors  to  the 
New  World.  The  Puritans  who  settled  Massachusetts  had 
little  if  any  more  disposition  to  tolerate  dissent  from  what 
they  believed  to  be  the  right  path  in  church  and  state 
than  had  Archbishop  Laud  to  allow  departure  from  the 
ceremonial  observances  which  he  enjoined.  They  had 
no  intention  of  separating  from  the  Church  of  England 
as  the  Pilgrims  had  done.  If  Mather  was  correctly  in- 
formed, one  of  the  two  ministers  of  the  first  Puritan  church 
on  Massachusetts  soil,  Francis  Higginson,  had  exclaimed 
when  the  last  headlands  of  their  island  home  faded  from 
the  view  of  his  fellow- voyagers : 

"  We  will  not  say,  as  the  separatists  were  wont  to  say 
at  their  leaving  of  England,  '  Farewel,  Babylon ! '  .  .  . 
but  .  .  .  'farewel,  the  Church  of  God  in  England!  .  .  . 
We  do  not  go  to  New  England  as  separatists  from  the 
Church  of  England ;  though  we  cannot  but  separate  from 
the  corruptions  in  it.'  " 

Certainly,  in  1630,  Winthrop,  Dudley,  Johnson,  and 
other  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  Massachusetts  Com- 
pany joined  in  the  declaration,  as  they  started  on  their 
voyage : 

"  Wee  desire  you  would  be  pleased  to  take  Notice  of 
the  Principals,  and  Body  of  our  Company,  as  those  who 


lOO  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  iv. 

esteeme  it  our  honour  to  call  the  Church  of  England,  from 
whence  wee  rise,  our  deare  Mother.  .  .  .  Wee  leave  it 
not  therefore,  as  loathing  that  milk  wherewith  we  were 
nourished  there,  but  blessing  God  for  the  Parentage  and 
Education,  as  Members  of  the  same  Body,  shall  always 
rejoice  in  her  good." 

And  in  1631  the  extremely  Separatist  Roger  Williams 
refused  to  supply  the  pulpit  of  the  Boston  church  because 
that  body  still  considered  itself  unseparated  from  the 
Church  of  England. 

All  the  more  remarkable  is  it,  then,  in  view  of  the 
worldly  and  educational  superiority  of  the  Puritans  over 
the  Pilgrims,  and  their  anti- Separatist  feeHngs,  that  the 
Puritan  churches  organized  in  New  England  adopted  the 
principles  of  Separatist  Plymouth  in  their  formation  and 
government.  No  step  in  the  development  of  Congrega- 
tionalism is  more  obscure  or  more  important  than  this 
Congregationalizing  of  English  Puritanism.  To  under- 
stand it  we  must  go  back  to  the  winter  of  1628-29,  when 
Endicott  and  the  vanguard  of  the  Puritan  emigration 
were  laying  the  foundations  at  Salem.  Illness  had  borne 
hard  on  the  little  company,  and  in  their  distress  Endicott 
had  obtained  the  ministrations  of  the  only  physician  then 
on  the  coast.  Dr.  Samuel  Fuller,  deacon  of  the  church  at 
Plymouth.  Before  Fuller's  coming,  Endicott,  like  most 
Puritans,  had  regarded  the  Plymouth  Separatists  with  sus- 
picion ;  but  in  conversation  with  his  guest  prejudices  melted 
away,  and  he  was  able  to  write  to  Bradford  on  May  11, 
1629,  as  follows: 

"  I  acknowledge  my  selfe  much  bound  to  you  for  your 
kind  love  and  care  in  sending  M^  Fuller  among  us,  and 
rejoyce  much  yt  I  am  by  him  satisfied  touching  your 
judgments  of  y^  outward  forme  of  Gods  worshipe.  It  is, 
as  farr  as  I  can  yet  gather,  no  other  then  is  warrented  b)- 


INFLUENCED  BY  PLYMOUTH.  lOI 

ye  evidence  of  truth,  and  y^  same  which  I  have  proffessed 
and  maintained  ever  since  y^  Lord  in  mercie  revealed  him 
selfe  unto  me ;  being  farr  from  y^  commone  reporte  that 
hath  been  spread  of  you  touching  that  perticuler." 

That  Endicott  was  readily  impressed  by  the  expositions 
of  the  Plymouth  deacon  was  natural.  Puritans  and  Sep- 
aratists had  never  had  doctrinal  disagreement ;  both  were 
pronounced  Calvinists.  Both  alike  believed  that  much  of 
the  worship  required  by  the  English  Establishment  was 
superstitious.  Both  held  that  in  the  Bible  God  has  set 
forth  all  his  will.  Both  welcomed  preaching  on  the  doc- 
trinal issues  of  the  day.  Both  had  left  their  native  land 
to  escape  High  Commission  Courts  and  requirements  of 
uniformity,  that  they  might  practice  "  the  positive  part  of 
church  reformation."  Neither  could  have  felt  any  desire 
to  see  the  continued  rule  of  bishops ;  for,  apart  from  the 
hostility  of  the  Separatists  and  extremer  Puritans  toward 
the  spiritual  claims  of  an  episcopal  order  as  unwarranted 
by  Scripture,  no  Puritan  in  Endicott's  company  could  have 
remembered  a  time  when  the  bishops,  as  a  whole,  had  not 
been  hostile  to  the  Puritans.  Nor  was  the  Prayer-Book 
likely  to  have  a  place  in  the  afifections  of  a  generation  of 
men  who  had  vainly  striven  to  amend  what  they  deemed 
its  evils,  and  had  seen  its  use  required  in  its  entirety  as  a 
badge  of  that  spiritual  system  which  the  Puritan  and  the 
Separatist  were  alike  trying  to  escape.  The  more  ad- 
vanced Puritans  had  held,  from  the  time  of  Cartwright  at 
least,  that  there  should  be  no  ministers  at  large,  but  that 
every  minister  ought  to  be  bound  to  a  particular  congre- 
gation, which  ought  in  some  way  to  have  a  voice  in  his 
selection ;  and  they  had  been  of  the  opinion  also  that  the 
local  church  should  be  so  purified  by  discipline  that  prac- 
tically only  persons  of  Christian  character  should  remain 
in  it.      In  addition  to  these  characteristics  of  the  extremer 


I02  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  i v. 

type  of  Puritanism  in  general  which  would  incline  to  a 
ready  acceptance  of  Plymouth  theories,  there  is  reason  to 
think  that  some  of  the  Puritans  associated  with  White  in 
the  initial  stages  of  the  Salem  undertaking  were  moving 
in  directions  hitherto  distinctive  only  of  English  Separa- 
tism. How  far  this  was  the  case  is  a  question  the  answer 
to  which  is  of  great  obscurity.  The  use  of  a  distinct  cov- 
enant as  the  basis  of  the  local  church  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  Congregationalism  whicli  never  found 
acceptance  with  English  Puritanism  as  a  whole,  but  was 
typical  of  the  system  of  Browne,  Barrowe,  and  Robinson. 
The  ordination  of  its  ministers  by  the  local  congregation, 
in  addition  to  their  election,  was  also  a  distinctly  Separatist 
doctrine.  But  certain  considerations  seem  to  show  that 
the  former  of  these  usages,  if  not  also  the  latter,  may  have 
been  favorably  regarded  in  the  circle  from  which  Endicott 
came.  Rev.  Hugh  Peter,  for  example,  who  was  among 
the  earliest  members  of  the  Massachusetts  Company  of 

1628,  and  whom  Endicott  must  have  known  personally, 
employed  a  covenant  in  the  church  at  Rotterdam  of  which 
he  became  colleague  pastor  on  his  flight  from  England  in 

1629.  Perhaps  he  may  have  argued  in  favor  of  the  prac- 
tice in  Endicott's  hearing  before  the  Salem  settlers  left 
England ;  but  more  probably  Peter's  own  adoption  of  the 
covenant  was  due  to  the  influence  of  his  associate  in  the 
Rotterdam  charge,  Dr.  William  Ames,  whose  Separatist 
leanings  were  decided.  Of  more  importance  as  showing 
possible  inclination  toward  covenant  organization  in  the 
circles  of  southwestern  England  where  White  labored  is 
the  fact  that  the  church  which  was  organized  through 
White's  efforts  at  Plymouth,  England,  in  March,  1630,  and 
which  afterward  settled  at  Dorchester,  Mass.,  seems  to 
have  had  some  more  definite  uniting  pledge  than  was 
usual  in  Puritan  parishes,  though  reasons  will  be   given 


INFLUENCED  BY  PLYMOUTH.  103 

when  the  organization  of  that  church  is  more  minutely 
described  for  doubting  whether  that  agreement  imphed  an 
exclusively  regenerate  membership.  And  if  the  statement 
is  true,  as  seems  hardly  credible,  that  at  the  officering  of 
that  church  the  ministers  were  not  only  chosen  but  or- 
dained by  the  congregation,  it  is  evident  that  the  Puritans 
of  southwestern  England  were  far  more  radical  than  Puri- 
tanism as  a  whole. 

But  while  it  is  thus  clear  that  Endicott  and  the  first 
emigrants  to  Salem  were  nearer  to  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims 
in  belief  than  they  at  first  realized,  their  conceptions  of 
polity  and  government  were  still  in  the  gristle,  and  we 
may  safely  conjecture  that  the  discussions  with  Fuller 
embraced  four  or  five  features  of  church  life,  in  regard  to 
all  of  which  general  Puritan  custom  differed  from  that  of 
Plymouth :  the  power  of  a  local  congregation  to  ordain  its 
own  chosen  officers ;  the  participation  or  non-participation 
of  the  church  as  a  whole  in  matters  of  discipline ;  the  use 
of  a  covenant ;  the  conduct  of  public  worship ;  and  rela- 
tionship or  non- relationship  to  a  national  church  whose 
nearest  congregation  was  three  thousand  miles  away.  On 
all  of  these  points  except  the  last  the  practice  of  Plymouth 
w^onover  or  confirmed  the  inclinations  of  the  Puritans  at 
Salem  ;  the  last  point  was  not  yielded,  and  most  of  the 
Massachusetts  Puritans  continued  to  view  themselves  for 
a  considerable  time  as  members  of  the  Church  of  England. 
But  if  the  soil  was  thus  prepared  for  the  seed  which 
Dr.  Fuller  sowed,  his  planting  was  of  the  first  importance. 
Agreed  as  Endicott  found  that  he  was  with  the  men  of 
Plymouth,  the  discovery  of  that  agreement  was  in  no  small 
measure  due  to  the  persuasive  skill  of  the  Plymouth  phy- 
sician. 

The  Plymouth  advice  resulted  speedily  in  the  formation 
at   Salem  of  a   Congregational   church,  the   first   Puritan 


I04  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [CHAr.  iv. 

church,  and  the  second  Congregational  church  in  New 
England.  The  historians  of  the  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  even  Rev.  John  Higginson,  son  of  the 
first  teacher  of  the  Salem  church  and  himself  one  of  its 
most  honored  ministers,  dated  its  formation  from  August 
6,  1629;  but  a  contemporary  letter  shows  that  by  July 
20th  of  that  year  a  covenanted  church  on  the  Plymouth 
model  existed  at  Salem,  which  on  that  day  chose  and  or- 
dained its  pastor  and  teacher.  It  is  quite  possible  that  this 
church  was  organized,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  the  union 
of  its  first  members  by  a  covenant,  in  the  late  spring  of 
1629,  before  the  coming  of  the  large  immigration  in  June. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  covenant  by  which  this  church  was 
constituted  was,  like  almost  all  early  Congregational  cov- 
enants, extremely  simple.  As  far  as  its  content  is  now 
known  it  was  embraced  in  a  single  sentence : 

"  We  Covenant  with  the  Lord  and  one  with  an  other ; 
and  doe  bynd  our  selves  in  the  presence  of  God,  to  walke 
together  in  all  his  waies,  according  as  he  is  pleased  to  re- 
veale  himself  unto  us  in  his  Blessed  word  of  truth." 

While  Endicott  had  thus  been  battling  with  the  New 
England  winter  and  coming  into  friendly  relations  with 
the  Separatists  of  Plymouth,  the  company  in  England 
whose  agent  he  was  had  been  rapidly  growing,  it  had  ob- 
tained its  royal  charter,  and  was  prepared  in  the  spring  of 
1629  to  send  over  a  numerous  body  of  colonists.  Promi- 
nent among  the  cares  of  the  company  during  this  busy 
winter  had  been  its  negotiations  with  clergymen  of  Puri- 
tan sentiment  to  take  spiritual  charge  of  its  American 
enterprise  and  attempt  the  conversion  also  of  the  savage 
natives  of  New  England.  In  this  search  aid  was  rendered 
by  Rev.  John  White  and  by  Rev.  John  Davenport,  later 
to  be  the  first  pastor  at  New  Haven,  Conn.  Three  minis- 
ters were  obtained,  Francis  Bright,  Francis  Higginson,  and 


THE   SALEM  CHURCH.  I05 

Samuel  Skelton,  all  of  whom  were  ordained  clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England ;  and  with  them  came  a  fourth 
minister  who  had  obtained  passage  in  the  company's  ships, 
Ralph  Smith,  whose  strict  Separatist  views  had  not  been 
understood  at  first  by  the  company ;  but  how  little  the 
enterprise  savored  of  general  toleration  is  manifest  from 
the  direction  given  to  Endicott  that  unless  Smith  should 
be  "  conformable  "  to  the  government  established  at  Salem 
he  should  not  be  permitted  to  remain.  Acknowledged 
fellowship  with  Separatist  Plymouth  was  still  far  from  the 
desire  of  the  managers  of  the  enterprise  in  England,  who, 
aside  from  their  own  objections  on  religious  grounds, 
doubtless  feared  the  hostility  of  the  English  Government 
should  the  Salem  colony  become  known  as  "Brownist." 
By  the  end  of  June,  1629,  these  ministerial  reinforcements 
had  crossed  the  Atlantic. 

On  July  20th,  about  three  weeks  after  their  arrival, 
Endicott  appointed — so  Charles  Gott  wrote  to  Bradford, 
ten  days  subsequent  to  the  event — "  a  solemne  day  of 
humilliation,  for  y  choyce  of  a  pastor  &  teacher."  The 
morning  of  that  day  was  spent  in  prayer  and  preaching 
as  a  preparation  for  the  main  event ;  and  in  the  afternoon 
Higginson  and  Skelton  were  asked  to  express  their  view 
as  to  the  proper  call  to  the  ministerial  office.  Both  had 
had  episcopal  hands  laid  on  them  in  ordination ;  but  both 
now  affirmed  that  a  true  call  embraced  two  elements,  one 
of  which  at  least  was  not  deemed  an  essential  in  their 
original  episcopal  vocation — an  inward  sense  of  fitness,  and 
an  election  by  the  free  suffrages  of  the  male  members  of 
"  a  company  of  beleevers  .  .  .  joyned  togither  in  cove- 
nante."  Such  a  covenant  church  the  Salem  congregation 
evidently  felt  itself  to  be,  for,  the  church  approving  these 
answers,  "  every  fit  member  wrote,  in  a  note,  his  name 
whom  the  Lord  moved  him  to  think  was  fit  for  a  pastor, 


1 06  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

and  so  likewise,  whom  they  would  have  for  teacher ;  so 
the  most  voice  was  for  Mr.  Skelton  to  be  Pastor,  and  Mr. 
Higginson  to  be  Teacher." 

This  election  was  followed  by  an  act  of  great  importance 
— one  which  would  scarcely  have  been  performed  save  for 
the  influence  of  Plymouth  teaching.  As  Gott  records  of 
the  pastor  and  teacher  just  elected :  "  They  accepting  y*^ 
choyce,  M""  Higgison,  with  3.  or  4.  of  y^  gravest  members 
of  ye  church,  laid  their  hands  on  M^  Skelton,  using  prayer 
therwith.  This  being  done,  ther  was  imposission  of  hands 
on  Mr  Higgison  also." 

By  this  laying  on  of  hands  Higginson  and  Skelton  broke 
with  the  whole  system  of  episcopal  succession  which  Laud 
maintained,  and  illustrated  the  wholly  congregational  con- 
ception that  it  was  within  the  province  of  every  Christian 
congregation  not  only  to  choose  but  to  ordain  its  own 
ofhcers — a  conception  which  had  been  held  in  its  fullness 
only  by  Separatists  and  Anabaptists. 

But  another  Congregational  principle  was  to  be  illus- 
trated in  the  formation  of  this  first  New  England  Puritan 
church  besides  that  of  the  autonomy  of  the  congregation.  At 
least  one  ruling  elder  and  one  or  more  deacons  were  elected 
on  this  memorable  20th  of  July ;  but  their  ordination  was 
delayed  in  order  that  there  might  be  no  repentance  if  the 
incoming  ships  should  bring  immigrants  better  qualified 
for  these  posts,  and  August  6th  was  fixed  for  the  comple- 
tion of  the  work.  News  of  the  events  past  and  to  occur 
was  sent  to  Bradford  at  Plymouth  by  a  private  correspond- 
ent, though  it  is  hardly  probable  that  the  statement  of 
the  Plymouth  historian  Morton  is  correct,  that  represent- 
atives from  Plymouth  were  formally  invited  by  the  Salem 
church.  However  this  may  have  been,  Bradford  and  some 
others  of  the  Plymouth  church  appear  to  have  gone  to 
Salem  to  welcome  the  new    enterprise,   and    though   the 


THE   SALEM  CHURCH.  107 

voyage  proved  longer  than  they  hoped,  they  came  into 
the  Salem  assembly  in  time  to  give  the  first  illustration  on 
American  soil  of  that  communion  of  churches  which  is  so 
important  a  trait  of  American  Congregationalism  by  hold- 
ing out  "  the  right  hand  of  fellowship." 

Yet  though  Endicott  and  Higginson  and  Skelton  were 
profoundly  influenced  by  Plymouth  example,  they  wished 
to  steer  a  narrow  course  of  their  own  between  such  a  con- 
formity to  the  methods  of  worship  of  the  English  Establish- 
ment as  the  more  moderate  Puritans  in  England  practiced, 
and  full  Separatism.  Not  all  the  inhabitants  even  of  the 
little  Salem  community  were  of  their  way  of  thinking. 
Two  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  newcomers  of  1629, 
John  and  Samuel  Browne,  were  dissatisfied  with  the  form 
and  worship  of  the  nev^  church.  To  their  thinking  it  was 
Separatist,  and  its  abandonment  of  the  Prayer-Book  was 
distasteful  to  them.  They  gathered  a  few  like-minded 
spirits  and  held  separate  services  at  which  the  liturgy  of 
the  Establishment  was  used.  The  situation  was  now  not 
unlike  that  from  which  Endicott  and  his  friends  had  fled 
in  England,  only  the  strength  of  the  parties  was  reversed. 
The  moderate  Puritans  at  Salem  who  deserted  the  congre- 
gation and  held  their  Anglican  service  were  now  the  non- 
conformists of  the  little  commonwealth,  and  as  such  they 
were  sent  back  to  England  by  Endicott  before  the  summer 
of  their  arrival  was  past.  On  the  other  hand,  Endicott 
desired  to  have  no  real  Separatists  in  the  colony,  much  as 
he  inclined  to  the  other  features  of  Plymouth  worship  and 
government ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  Rev.  Ralph  Smith, 
who  was  apparently  a  decided  Separatist,  found  it  well  to 
leave  for  desolate  Nantasket,  whence  he  was  brought  to 
Plymouth  by  a  kindly  crew  from  that  place,  to  meet  a 
more  friendly  reception  than  at  Salem,  and  to  become  for 
a  time  the   minister  of  the   Plymouth   church.      Of  the 


I08  THE    CONGREGATlONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

causes  of  dissatisfaction  which  led  Francis  Bright,  one  of 
the  three  ministers  sent  out  by  the  company,  to  return  to 
England  in  1630  little  is  certainly  known;  but  the  writers 
of  New  England  history  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  believed  that  he,  like  the  Brownes,  was  too 
much  of  a  conformist  wholly  to  relish  the  Salem  inno- 
vations. 

That  so  radical  a  departure  was  not  expected  or  relished 
by  the  Puritan  members  of  the  company  who  remained  in 
England  there  is  abundant  evidence.  On  news  of  what 
had  been  done  by  Endicott  regarding  the  Brownes  his 
superiors  wrote  to  him :  "  Wee  may  haue  leave  to  think 
that  it  is  possible  some  vndigested  councells  haue  too 
sodainely  bin  put  in  execucon,  wch  may  haue  ill  construccon 
w^h  the  state  heere,  and  make  vs  obnoxious  to  any  adver- 
sary." 

It  is  evident,  too,  that  the  English  Puritans  believed  the 
Salem  novelties  to  be  due  to  Plymouth  influence.  A  year 
after  the  formation  of  the  Salem  church,  1630,  Winthrop, 
Dudley,  Johnson,  and  Coddington  were  denied  the  Lord's 
Supper  by  Skelton,  and  baptism  was  denied  to  Codd- 
ington's  child,  since  they  were  not  members  of  any  local 
church.  On  news  of  this  refusal  of  the  sacraments  to  those 
who  certainly  were  members  of  the  Church  of  England, 
supposing  a  national  church  to  have  any  rightful  existence. 
Rev.  John  Cotton,  then  of  Boston,  England,  but  later  to 
become  the  teacher  of  the  church  of  Boston,  Mass.,  and  a 
chief  defender  of  the  position  he  now  attacked,  wrote  to 
Skelton  in  distress,  declaring :  "  You  went  hence  of  another 
judgment,  and  I  am  afraid  your  change  hath  sprung  from 
New  Plymouth  men." 

The  story  of  Salem  beginnings  has  thus  been  told  at 
some  length  because  it  is  a  turning-point  in  Congregational 
history.     Had  Endicott,   Higginson,  and  Skelton  moved 


THE   SALEM   CHURCH.  IO9 

in  <iny  other  direction  than  that  they  took,  Congregational 
de  felopment  would  have  been  vastly  other  than  was  act- 
ually the  case.  They  might  have  maintained  the  moder- 
ately conformist  position  of  the  Brownes ;  but  had  they 
done  so,  the  Plymouth  inlluence  would  have  been  scarcely 
felt,  and  the  Puritan  and  Pilgrim  streams  could  hardly  have 
flowed  together.  They  might  have  become  wholly  Sepa- 
ratist ;  but  that  would  have  been  to  break  with  the  com- 
pany which  had  sent  them  out,  and  to  have  been  discred- 
ited in  large  measure  by  the  army  of  immigration  that 
was  to  follow  them.  As  it  was,  they  disowned  one  feature 
of  Plymouth  polity — that  of  Separation — which  was  not 
very  strenuously  insisted  on  at  Plymouth,  and  which  had 
little  practical  importance  across  the  Atlantic,  save  as  a 
stimulant  to  English  prejudice.  But  all  other  essentials 
of  Plymouth  practice  they  adopted,  and  made  thereby 
characteristics  of  Puritan  Congregationalism.  The  path- 
way thus  marked  out  was  one  easy  to  follow  by  those 
who  came  after  them.  And  the  credit  of  this  fusion  is 
due  primarily  to  two  laymen.  Dr.  Samuel  Fuller  and  Gov- 
ernor John  Endicott. 

The  effect  of  the  adoption  of  full  Congregationalism  by 
the  Salem  church  in  molding  subsequent  Puritan  organi- 
zations is  clearly  apparent  in  the  constitution  of  two  of 
the  three  Massachusetts  churches  that  were  formed  in 
1630 — those  of  Charlestown-Boston  and  of  Watertown. 
The  church  immediately  subsequent  in  origin  to  that  of 
Salem  had  indeed  a  peculiar  and  an  interesting  beginning. 
Of  all  Puritan  churches  in  New  England,  only  one,  repre- 
sented now  by  the  church  at  Windsor,  Conn.,  and  possibly 
by  the  First  Church,  Dorchester,  Mass.,  traces  its  conti- 
nuity back  to  English  soil.  Its  origin  was  in  a  company 
gathered  by  that  unwearied  friend  of  Massachusetts  col- 
onization, Rev.  John  White,  in    1629  and    1630,  drawn 


no  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

largely  from  the  southwestern  counties  of  the  island,  which 
left  England  on  March  20,  1630,  and  settled  at  Dorchester 
early  in  June.  This  body  assembled  in  the  New  Hospital 
at  Plymouth,  England,  just  before  sailing  ;  and  there,  under 
the  guidance  of  White,  chose  as  its  officers  two  clergy- 
men of  the  Church  of  England,  from  Exeter  and  its  neigh- 
borhood, John  Maverick  and  John  Warham.  Here,  as  at 
Salem,  the  choice  was  solemnized  by  a  fast  and  preceded 
by  a  sermon ;  but  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the 
ministers  were  ordained  by  the  church.  Roger  Clap,  who 
was  present  as  a  young  man,  and  whose  vivid  recollections 
written  out  many  years  later  constitute  our  source  of 
knowledge  of  the  details  of  the  scene,  would  hardly  have 
omitted  so  essential  a  feature.  White,  who  was  no  ex- 
treme nonconformist,  and  was  afterward  much  more  of  a 
Presbyterian  than  a  Congregationalist,  as  evidenced  by  his 
later  attitude  in  the  Westminster  Assembly,  could  scarcely 
have  countenanced  it ;  and  the  thought  of  ordination  in 
addition  to  election  in  this  transaction  at  Plymouth  would 
probably  be  at  once  rejected,  were  it  not  for  the  direct 
statement  of  the  learned  eighteenth  century  New  England 
annalist,  Rev.  Thomas  Prince,  that  ordination  took  place. 
Prince  based  his  statement  on  a  manuscript  letter,  but 
whose  or  wdien  written  does  not  appear ;  and  the  inherent 
improbabilities  seem  so  great  that  one  may  well  hesitate 
before  accepting  the  allegation  as  proven.  Whether  this 
body  possessed  a  covenant  before  leaving  England  is  also 
not  easy  to  decide,  and  competent  New  England  historians 
have  held  the  affirmative  and  the  negative.  Roger  Clap, 
of  whom  mention  has  been  made,  though  present  as  a 
member  of  the  expedition  at  the  election  at  Plymouth, 
was  "  admitted  into  the  Church  Fellowship  at  the  first 
beginning  in  DorcJiester,  in  the  year  1630."  This  would 
seem  as  if  some  agreement  had  been  entered  into  before 


THE  DORCHESTER    CHURCH.  Ill 

sailing  to  which  the  young  and  humbly  ranked  Clap  was 
not  a  partner.  But  whether  this  agreement  impHed  a 
covenant  entered  into  by  regenerate  persons  only  as  the 
basis  of  the  church,  is  made  doubtful  by  Warham's  opinion, 
expressed  to  Fuller  just  after  the  arrival  of  the  Dorchester 
company  on  American  soil,  that  the  "  church  may  consist 
of  a  mixed  people,  godly  and  openly  ungodly  "■ — a  view 
which  comports  with  the  English  Puritan  theory  better 
than  with  that  of  Plymouth.  But  whatever  imperfec- 
tions there  may  have  been  in  the  Congregationalism  of  this 
Dorchester  body  at  its  coming,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  was 
moving  in  a  direction  which  would  incline  it  to  look  favor- 
ably at  what  Endicott  and  his  Salem  associates  had  done, 
and  feel  kindly  toward  Plymouth,  whose  physician,  the 
indefatigable  Fuller,  was  ministering  to  the  sick  of  the 
Dorchester  company,  and  talking  church  polity  to  sick  and 
well,  within  a  month  of  their  arrival. 

Before  the  Dorchester  fellowship  had  much  more  than 
begun  the  erection  of  their  dwellings  the  main  portion  of 
the  immigration  of  1630  had  come  and  entered  on  the 
hard  life  of  colonial  beginnings  at  a  number  of  other  places 
about  Massachusetts  Bay — the  chief  interest  being  of 
course  at  Charlestown,  and  speedily  at  Boston,  where 
Governor  Winthrop  and  his  immediate  following  were 
located,  and  at  Watertowri,  where  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall 
was  the  most  prominent  settler.  With  Winthrop  was 
Rev.  John  Wilson,  a  Puritan  clergyman  of  the  Church  of 
England  who  had  been  conspicuous  for  his  nonconformity 
during  an  interrupted  ministry  at  Sudbury,  in  Suffolk ; 
with  Saltonstall  was  Rev.  George  Phillips,  a  clergyman  of 
even  stronger  anti-Anglican  tendencies,  from  Boxford,  in 
Essex.  As  yet  none  of  these  infant  communities  were 
gathered  into  Congregational  church  estate  ;  they  had  in- 
deed been  advised  to  consult  with  the  people  of  Plymouth 


112  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

by  a  minister  held  in  great  esteem  among  them,  John 
Cotton,  of  Boston,  England,  who  was  three  years  later  to 
become  the  teacher  of  the  church  at  Boston,  Mass.  But 
his  counsel  appears  to  have  been  of  the  most  general  char- 
acter, and  these  immigrants  came  to  Massachusetts  Bay 
with  their  conceptions  of  church  organization  still  in  the 
formative  stage.  In  this  condition  they  fell  under  the 
molding  influence  of  Fuller,  and  of  his  earlier  convert 
Endicott,  whom  the  Plymouth  physician  now  describes  as 
a  second  Barrowe  in  his  zeal  for  the  Congregational  way. 
The  sickness  incident  to  new  settlements  in  those  days 
of  little  sanitary  knowledge  afflicted  Winthrop's  company 
at  Charlestown  severely.  In  their  distress  Winthrop  ap- 
pealed to  the  Salem  church  for  advice.  At  Salem  there 
were  present,  on  the  reception  of  this  request,  three  of  the 
more  prominent  members  of  the  Plymouth  body,  Fuller, 
Winslow,  and  AUerton,  and,  as  was  natural,  they  too  were 
consulted  as  to  the  problem  presented  by  the  Massachu- 
setts governor.  By  the  joint  counsel  of  the  Salem  church 
and  of  the  representatives  of  that  of  Plymouth,  Friday,  July 
30,  1630,  was  appointed  as  a  fast  in  view  of  the  sickness, 
and  by  the  same  advice  covenanted  churches  were  organ- 
ized on  that  day  at  Charlestown  and  Watertown.  At 
Charlestown  such  care  was  exercised  in  admission  to  this 
new  fellowship  that  on  the  day  of  beginning  only  four, 
Governor  Winthrop,  Isaac  Johnson,  Thomas  Dudley,  and 
Rev.  John  Wilson,  were  united — a  number  which  was 
rapidly  augmented  during  the  ensuing  weeks.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  observe  that  at  Charlestown,  as  was  probably 
the  case  at  Salem,  the  organization  of  the  church  by  union 
in  covenant  considerably  preceded  its  choice  of  officers. 
It  was  not  till  August  27th,  after  salaries,  to  be  raised 
by  taxation,  had  been  voted  to  Wilson  and  Phillips  by 
the  assistants  of  the  company  on  August  23d,  that  the 


CHARLESTOWN  AND    WATERTOWN.  II3 

Charlestown-Boston  church  chose  and  installed  John 
Wilson  as  teacher,  Increase  Nowell  as  ruling  elder,  and 
William  Gager  and  William  Aspinwall  as  deacons.  It  is 
curiously  illustrative  of  the  conservatism  of  this  Puritan 
congregation  that,  as  Winthrop  tells  us,  they  "  used  im- 
position of  hands,  but  with  this  protestation  by  all,  that  it 
was  only  as  a  sign  of  election  and  confirmation,  not  of  any 
intent  that  Mr.  Wilson  should  renounce  his  ministry  he 
received  in  England  " — of  course  at  the  hands  of  a  bishop. 
But  the  trend  of  the  Charlestown-Boston  church  toward 
the  full  realization  of  the  Plymouth  ideals  was  decided. 
Though  Roger  Williams  found  it  still  "  unseparated  "  in 
163 1,  in  November,  1632,  when  Wilson  was  transferred 
from  its  teachership  to  its  pastorate,  he  was  *'  ordained  by 
imposition  of  hands  "  of  the  elder  and  deacons,  and  Win- 
throp records  no  reservation  as  to  previous  ministry ;  and 
when,  on  October  10,  1633,  the  distinguished  John  Cot- 
ton, already  for  twenty  years  vicar  at  Boston,  England, 
was  made  its  teacher,  he  was  "  chosen  by  all  the  congre- 
gation testifying  their  consent  by  erection  of  hands,"  and 
then  ordained  by  the  pastor  and  ruling  elders,  who,  "  speak- 
ing to.  him  by  his  name,  .  .  .  did  .  .  .  design  him  to  the 
said  office,  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  did  give 
him  the  charge  of  the  congregation,  and  did  thereby  (as 
by  a  sign  from  God)  indue  him  with  the  gifts  fit  for  his 
office;  and  lastly  did  bless  him." 

Absence  of  a  chronicler  like  Winthrop  makes  it  impos- 
sible to  follow  the  course  of  events  at  Watertown  as  closely 
as  at  Charlestown-Boston,  but  there  is  reason  to  think 
that  the  tendency  in  polity  Plymouth-ward  there  was  even 
more  rapid.  The  minister,  George  Phillips,  told  Fuller 
a  month  before  the  gathering  of  the  church,  that  if  his 
people  "  will  have  him  stand  minister,  by  that  calling 
which  he  received  from  the  prelates  in  England,  he  will 


114  ^-^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

leave  them  "  ;  and  the  tradition  reported  by  Hubbard  and 
Mather  concerning  him  was  that  he  was  more  advanced 
toward  the  Separatist  ideals  in  his  Congregationalism  than 
most  of  the  early  New  England  pastors. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  Plymouth  example, 
as  interpreted  and  somewhat  modified  by  Salem,  found 
ready  approval  with  the  three  Puritan  churches  which  orig- 
inated in  1630.  Thus  infiuentially  established  by  those 
who  were  to  be  leaders  in  all  early  Massachusetts  history, 
the  way  was  made  easy  for  the  adoption  of  full  Congrega- 
tionalism by  the  Puritan  immigration  that  came  after ;  and 
this  tendency  to  conform  to  the  type  developed  in  1629 
and  1630  was  doubtless  stimulated  by  the  prescription  of 
the  Massachusetts  General  Court  in  May,  163 1,  that  the 
franchise  should  be  limited  to  those  in  church-membership. 
This  enactment,  characteristic  of  Massachusetts  and  New 
Haven  colonies,  and  not  to  be  found  in  Plymouth  or  Con- 
necticut, was  doubtless  intended  to  establish  a  semi-theo- 
cratic government,  wherein  the  religious  element  should 
rule  and  from  which  all  disaffected  with  the  Puritan  way, 
especially  all  Anglican  sympathizers,  should  be  excluded ; 
but  its  effect  could  have  been  scarcely  less  in  giving  fixity 
to  the  pattern  of  church  organization  set  at  the  beginning 
of  the  colony.  It  made  Congregationalism  essentially  a 
state  church,  and  insured  that  all  later  coming  bodies  of 
Christians,  not  violently  out  of  sympathy  with  the  views 
of  the  founders,  would  organize  themselves  after  the  pat- 
tern with  which  the  founders  had  connected  the  fran- 
chise, and  which  was  in  so  many  respects  attractive  to  the 
advanced  Puritan.  Like  the  whole  trend  of  the  English 
Reformation  mo\'ement,  of  which  it  was  a  radical  manifes- 
tation, this  religious  commonwealth  was  essentially  con- 
trolled by  laymen.  No  charge  is  more  baseless  than  that 
which  represents  early  New  England  as  "priest-ridden." 


A    STATE    CHURCH.  II5 

The  minister  was  reverenced  and  consulted  as  perhaps  in 
no  other  British  territory;  but  a  jealous  pubhc  sentiment 
excluded  him  from  political  office,  and  kept  the  ultimate 
control  of  the  churches  and  of  the  state  in  the  hands  of 
the  General  Court.  It  was  Endicott  rather  than  Higginson 
that  gave  form  to  religious  institutions  at  Salem,  and 
crushed  out  incipient  dissent  by  expelling  the  Brownes. 
It  was  the  General  Court,  whatever  urging  may  have  come 
from  the  ministers,  that  banished  Williams  and  Anne 
Hutchinson.  It  was  the  same  legislative  assembly  that 
called,  in  1646,  the  Cambridge  Synod  that  gave  definite 
written  form  to  the  polity  of  New  England.  And  in 
Massachusetts  after  1631  the  Court  was  a  body  of  lay 
church-members.  The  vote  of  that  year  was  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Puritan  reaction  against  the  condition  of  affairs 
in  England.  There  every  man  was  accounted  of  the 
church  by  reason  of  his  membership  in  the  state;  in 
Massachusetts  a  voice  in  the  state  was  now  conditioned 
on  membership  in  the  church  for  all  who  were  admitted 
to  the  privilege  after  1631,  and  this  continued  to  be  the 
rule  till  1664;  and  really  in  spirit,  though  not  in  letter,  till 
the  revocation  of  the  charter  in  1684. 

The  rapid  immigration  of  the  fourth  decade  of  the 
seventeenth  century  led  to  the  speedy  formation  of  new 
churches,  often  by  companies  already  well  acquainted 
with  one  another  on  English  soil,  and  under  the  charge  of 
ministers  whose  services  had  been  prized  by  their  New 
England  hearers  before  leaving  the  mother-country.  No 
church  was  organized  in  1631  ;  but  in  July,  1632,  that  at 
Roxbury  came  into  being  with  Thomas  Welde  as  pastor, 
and  before  the  close  of  the  year  with  "  Apostle  "  John 
Eliot  as  teacher.  The  same  year  saw  the  beginnings  of 
a  church  at  Lynn,  and  the  separate  organization  of  the 
members  of  the  Charlestown-Boston  church,  whose  natural 


Il6  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

meeting-place  was  at  Charlestown.  In  Plymouth  colony 
also  the  first  ecclesiastical  swarming  from  the  parent  hive 
took  place  in  1632,  and  resulted  in  churches  at  Duxbury 
and  Marshfield.  The  year  1633  saw  the  completion  of  a 
strong  church  at  Newtown,  now  Cambridge,  with  Thomas 
Hooker  as  pastor,  Samuel  Stone  as  teacher,  William  Good- 
win as  ruling  elder,  and  John  Haynes,  successively  go\- 
ernor  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  as  its  chief  lay 
member — a  church  that  in  process  of  time  became  the 
First  Church  in  Hartford.  In  1634  churches  were  estab- 
lished at  Ipswich  in  Massachusetts  and  at  Scituate  in 
Plymouth;  while  1635  beheld  the  origin  of  churches  at 
Newbury,  Weymouth,  and  Hingham ;  1636  added  to  the 
roll  of  Massachusetts  churches  that  of  Concord,  and  new 
churches  at  Cambridge  and  Dorchester  to  take  the  places 
of  those  which  had  gone  from  these  places  to  Connecticut. 
Possibly  the  church  at  Wethersfield,  Conn.,  was  formed 
also  in  the  year  last  named.  Springfield  in  Massachu- 
setts and  Taunton  in  Plymouth  followed  in  1637  ;  in  1638 
Massachusetts  received  Salisbury  and  Dedham,  Plymouth 
added  Sandwich;  and  three  churches  were  founded  in 
what  is  now  New  Hampshire,  at  Hampton,  Dover,  and 
Exeter.  In  1639  came  the  churches  of  Quincy  and  Row- 
ley in  Massachusetts,  of  Yarmouth  and  a  new  church  at 
Scituate  in  Plymouth  colony,  and  those  of  New  Haven 
and  Milford  in  New  Haven  colony.  Thus,  in  a  few  months 
more  than  ten  years  from  the  formation  of  the  Salem 
church,  the  churches  of  New  England  probably  numbered 
thirty-three.  Of  these  the  churches  of  Newbury  and 
Hingham  had  pastors  inclined  to  Presbyterianism  in  in- 
ternal administration,  and  rather  critical  of  the  polity  of 
the  majority ;  but  the  others  were  all  of  the  full  Congre- 
gational type. 

Mention  has  been  made  in  the  preceding  paragraph  of 


SETTLEMENT  OF   CONNECTICUT.  I17 

churches  in  Connecticut  and  New  Haven  colonies.  The 
founding  of  these  plantations  was  the  most  noteworthy- 
territorial  extension  of  Puritanism  in  New  England,  impor- 
tant as  giving  strategical  control  of  southern  New  England 
to  the  settlers  who  had  hitherto  occupied  only  a  narrow 
fringe  on  the  eastern  coast,  but  chiefly  noteworthy  in  our 
story  as  allowing  room  for  the  development  of  independent 
types  of  civil  government  and  church  polity,  closely  re- 
sembling those  of  Massachusetts,  but  possessed  of  individ- 
ual peculiarities,  since  Connecticut  and  New  Haven  were 
never  mere  echoes  of  the  larger  colony  ;  and  ultimately 
giving  to  American  Congregationalism  a  broader  variety 
in  form  and  a  more  diversified  doctrinal  life  than  if  its 
development  had  been  confined  to  Massachusetts  alone. 

The  settlement  of  Connecticut  was  chiefly  the  work  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Newtown  (now  Cambridge)  and  Dor- 
chester, together  with  a  few  from  Watertown  and  other 
Massachusetts  towns.  Its  causes  are  somewhat  complex ; 
and  it  seems  strange  at  first  sight  that  men  who  had 
miles  of  unsubdued  forest  almost  at  their  doors  should  so 
soon  find  the  limits  of  the  first  settlements  too  narrow. 
But  the  founders  of  New  England  had  all  the  land-hunger 
of  pioneer  communities  of  our  more  modern  West ;  like 
all  frontier  societies,  they  were  marked  by  restlessness  and 
love  of  change.  The  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  with  its 
long  stretches  of  fertile,  treeless  meadows,  was  a  garden 
spot  compared  with  the  hard  soil  about  Massachusetts 
Bay.  There  was  serious  danger  that  it  would  be  taken  by 
the  Dutch  or  the  men  of  Plymouth,  who  both  had  posts 
on  the  river  by  1633.  This  was  incentive  enough  for  emi- 
gration thither;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  other 
motives,  of  a  nature  less  easily  expressed  in  public  debate, 
may  have  urged  the  removal  quite  as  strongly.  The  New- 
town people  were  a  wealthy  and  homogeneous  company, 


I  1 8  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  n". 

led  in  spiritual  matters  by  Hooker  and  Stone,  and  in  civil 
concerns  by  John  Haynes,  men  easily  the  peers  of  any  in 
the  colony.  They  may  well  have  desired  to  go  where 
these  leaders  could  have  a  little  freer  scope  than  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  Winthrop  and  Cotton — the 
more  so  that  Hooker  seems  to  have  had  a  somewhat  more 
democratic  theory  of  government  than  prevailed  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  to  have  disapproved  of  the  limitation  of  the 
franchise  to  church-members.  The  Dorchester  company, 
too,  though  it  did  not  enter  into  the  emigration  quite  as 
fully  as  that  of  Newtown,  will  be  remembered  as  some- 
what peculiar  in  origin  and  distinct  in  composition.  At 
all  events,  unrest  soon  manifested  itself  in  these  towns. 
By  1634  the  people  of  Newtown  were  petitioning  the 
General  Court  for  leave  to  go  to  Connecticut,  and  the  same 
year  a  few  adventurers  from  Watertown  were  beginning 
the  settlement  of  what  is  now  Wethersfield.  The  emigra- 
tion of  the  petitioners  was  delayed,  but  before  the  close 
of  1635  many  inhabitants  of  Dorchester  and  Newtown  had 
found  their  way  to  what  became  Windsor  and  Hartford. 
In  the  spring  of  1636  this  emigration  reached  its  greatest 
height,  when  Hooker  and  Stone,  with  a  large  part  of  their 
congregation,  made  their  way  overland  to  Hartford ;  and 
probably  during  the  same  season  the  surviving  minister 
of  the  Dorchester  church,  John  Warham,  took  up  his 
abode  at  Windsor,  whither  many  of  his  flock  preceded 
or  accompanied  him.  Thus  two  of  the  most  prominent 
Massachusetts  churches  were  transferred  to  Connecticut, 
the  continuity  of  their  organization  being  uninterrupted 
by  the  change ;  while  on  the  soil  which  they  had  aban- 
doned, and  where  some  of  their  former  members  still  re- 
mained, new  churches  had  to  be  gathered  to  take  their 
place.  Connecticut,  though  a  small  colony,  had  thus  from 
the  first  a  strong  ministry  and  a  completely  ordered  Con- 


SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  HAVEN.  119 

gregational  ecclesiastical  system,  while  its  early  tendencies 
were  a  little  less  theocratic  than  those  of  Massachusetts. 

New  Haven,  the  youngest  of  the  early  Congregational 
colonies,  had  its  origin  in  a  Puritan  company  gathered 
chiefly  from  London  by  Rev.  John  Davenport,  who  had 
been  curate  of  St.  Lawrence  Jewry,  and  afterward  vicar 
of  St.  Stephen's  in  that  city,  till  Laud's  opposition  caused 
him  to  fly  to  Holland  in  1633.  Davenport  had  been  in- 
terested in  the  Massachusetts  enterprise  almost  from  the 
beginning,  and  by  the  close  of  1636  his  friends  were 
making  ready  for  the  voyage.  Chief  among  them  was  his 
parishioner,  Theophilus  Eaton,  a  London  merchant,  and 
the  whole  company  was  conspicuous  for  wealth  and  high 
character.  \\\  sympathy  with  this  London  movement  two 
small  emigrant  parties  were  formed  in  other  regions  of 
England,  in  Hereford  under  the  spiritual  leadership  of 
Rev.  Peter  Prudden,  and  in  Kent,  Surrey,  and  Sussex  by 
men  who  chose  as  their  minister  Rev.  Henry  Whitfield,  of 
Okely,  in  Surrey ;  and  settlers  from  Yorkshire  also  added 
their  strength  to  the  enterprise.  Davenport,  Prudden, 
Eaton,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  future  New  Haven 
settlers  sailed  from  England  in  the  spring  of  1637  and 
landed  in  Boston  on  June  26th,  where  they  met  a  warm 
welcome  from  the  Massachusetts  authorities,  who  would 
gladly  have  received  so  valuable  an  accession  of  strength 
to  their  own  colony.  But  the  emigrants  desired  independ- 
ence ;  Davenport  was  a  man  of  positive  opinions  as  to  the 
ordering  of  church  and  state ;  and  while  the  newcomers 
agreed  substantially  with  the  leaders  of  Massachusetts, 
they  preferred  to  be  their  own  masters.  Accordingly, 
after  some  exploration  and  a  winter  spent  in  the  vicinity 
of  Boston,  they  removed  to  the  site  afterward  known  as 
New  Haven,  reaching  their  goal  in  April,  1638.  From 
the  first  the  colony  had  a  stronger  theocratic  tendency 


I20  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

than  any  of  its  predecessors,  and  one  of  the  earliest  acts 
after  setting  foot  on  New  Haven  soil  was  an  agreement 
that  church  and  state  alike — laws,  officers,  and  problems 
of  government — should  be  ordered  by  the  Word  of  God. 
But  as  yet  no  church  was  formed,  though  worship  was 
regularly  maintained.  It  was  not  till  more  than  a  year  had 
elapsed  after  the  beginnings  at  New  Haven,  and  Prud- 
den  with  his  Hereford  associates  had  determined  to  estab- 
lish the  neighboring  plantation  of  Milford,  that  on  June  4, 
1639,  the  permanent  civil  and  ecclesiastical  government  of 
New  Haven  was  determined.  After  considerable  debate, 
in  which  the  point  of  contention  was  the  restriction  of  the 
suffrage  to  church-members,  the  landed  proprietors  of  the 
infant  colon}-,  led  b}^  Davenport  and  Eaton,  voted  that  the 
"  Scripturs  doe  holde  forth  a  perfect  rule  for  the  directid 
and  gouernmt  of  all  men  in  all  duet[ies]  w^h  they  are  to 
performe  to  God  and  men  as  well  in  the  gon'mt^  of  famy- 
lyes  and  comonwealths  as  in  matters  of  the  chur[ch]  "  ; 
and  renewed  their  pledge  of  the  previous  year  that  they 
would  be  governed  by  biblical  rules  in  the  organization 
of  a  church  and  in  the  "  choyce  of  magistrates  and  officers, 
makeing  and  repealing  of  lawes,  devideing  allottmts  of  in- 
heritance and  all  things  of  like  nature." 

They  then  voted  to  limit  the  franchise  to  church-mem- 
bers, thus  bringing  their  practice  into  accord  with  that  of 
Massachusetts,  and  departing  from  that  of  Plymouth  and 
Connecticut ;  and,  in  order  to  establish  the  church,  this 
assembly  of  "  free  planters,"  still  guided  by  Davenport, 
proceeded  to  nominate  twelve  men,  who  should  select 
seven  from  among  themselves  as  the  foundation  members 
of  the  church  to  be.  Thus  by  the  voluntary  action  of  the 
New  Haven  founders  the  franchise  and  tenure  of  office 
were  restricted  to  a  portion  of  the  community. 

After  more  than  two  months  of  deliberation  the  New 


SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  HAVEN.  12  I 

Haven  church  was  formed  by  the  seven  pillar-members 
chosen  by  the  committee  of  twelve,  on  August  21  or  22, 
1639,  Davenport  and  Eaton  being  included  in  its  original 
fellowship;  and  on  October  25th  following  these  seven 
church-members  organized  the  civil  government  of  the 
little  community,  elected  Eaton  as  magistrate  or  governor, 
and  extended  the  franchise  to  those  (only  three  in  number) 
who  had  been  admitted  to  the  New  Haven  church  up  to 
that  time,  and  also  to  those  who  were  "  members  of  other 
approved  churches."  Though  they  had  no  royal  charter, 
this  new  government  felt  itself  authorized  five  days  later 
to  execute  an  Indian  for  murder.  The  new  church,  like 
that  at  Boston  and  probably  that  at  Salem,  was  at  first  a 
covenanted  association  without  officers,  but  the  tradition 
when  Benjamin  Trumbull  wrote  his  '^  History  of  Connecti- 
cut," a  century  ago,  was  that  not  long  after  its  organiza- 
tion the  infant  church  chose  Davenport  its  pastor,  with  the 
presence  and  assistance  of  Hooker  and  Stone  of  Hartford 
in  his  installation  ;  though  the  circumstances  of  the  officer- 
ing of  the  Milford  church  make  this  Hartford  assistance 
doubtful. 

The  transactions  thus  narrated  concerned  only  the  in- 
habitants of  New  Haven,  for  in  Davenport's  colony,  unlike 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  the  towns  were  at  first 
wholly  independent  of  each  other ;  and  no  central  author- 
ity had  jurisdiction  over  them  all  till  1643.  While  the 
New  Haven  church  was  being  organized  Prudden  and  his 
Hereford  company  were  still  in  New  Haven,  though  as 
intended  residents  of  Milford  they  were  looked  upon  as 
independent.  Evidently,  however,  they  approved  of  the 
course  of  the  New  Haven  settlers,  for  on  August  22,  1639, 
the  same  day  that  the  New  Haven  church  was  formed,  or 
possibly  the  day  after,  seven  prominent  men  chosen  by 
their  company  organized  the  Milford  church  at  New  Haven. 


122  THE    CONGREGATIOXA LISTS.  [Chap.  IV. 

Of  these  seven  Prudden  was  one,  and  on  April  i8,  1640, 
he  was  ordained  its  pastor  at  Milford  with  imposition  of 
hands  by  three  of  the  six  men  who  liad  originahy  entered 
into  covenant  with  him.  In  this  it  may  well  be  believed 
that  Milford  simply  followed  what  New  Haven  had  already 
done  in  the  case  of  Davenport.  By  November,  1639,  this 
company  were  in  their  Milford  home,  and  on  November 
20th  the  planters  there  voted  that  the  franchise  should 
be  confined  to  church- members.  This  prescription  was 
speedily  modified,  and  six  non-member  landholders  were 
allowed  the  ballot.  But  when  Milford  was  admitted  into 
union  with  New  Haven  and  other  towns  of  the  colony  in 
October,  1643,  these  non-church-members  were  expressly 
denied  a  direct  voice  in  matters  of  general  colonial  concern. 
The  company  from  Kent,  Surrey,  and  Sussex,  under 
the  leadership  of  Rev.  Henry  Whitfield,  of  which  mention 
has  been  made,  arrived  in  New  Haven  by  direct  voyage 
from  England  during  the  summer  in  which  the  churches 
of  New  Haven  and  Milford  were  formed.  On  this  voyage 
they  had  entered  into  a  written  covenant  to  be  faithful  one 
to  another,  but  expressly  reserving  the  formation  of  their 
church  till  they  should  be  settled  in  their  new  home. 
Established  at  Guilford  before  the  close  of  1639,  their 
affairs  were  temporarily  ordered  by  committees  until  they 
could  accomplish  the  "  main  end  "  of  their  coming — the 
establishment  of  "  the  ordinances  of  God  in  an  explicite 
congregational  church  way."  There  is  some  reason  to 
believe  that  the  New  Haven  restrictions  on  the  suffrage 
were  not  satisfactory  to  the  people  of  Guilford,  and  there- 
fore the  formation  of  their  church  was  delayed  ;  but  though 
they  had  been  originally  politically  independent,  the  for- 
mation of  the  Colonial  Union  of  Massachusetts,  Plymouth, 
Connecticut,  and  New  Haven  in  1643  made  it  seem  desir- 
able for  Guilford  to  unite  in  a  common  jurisdiction  with 


MILFORD  AND    GUILFORD.  123 

New  Haven  and  Milford ;  and  accordingly,  in  the  spring 
or  summer  of  1643,  probably  June  19th,  seven  men  entered 
into  covenant  as  at  New  Haven,  and  the  Guilford  church 
was  constituted.  Two  of  the  seven  were  ministers,  Whit- 
field and  John  Higginson,  who  became  pastor  and  teacher, 
though  some  doubt  exists  as  to  whether  Whitfield,  at  least, 
was  not  esteemed  so  far  a  minister  by  virtue  of  his  episcopal 
ordination  that  he  was  not  specially  ordained  to  this  charge. 

The  formation  of  churches  by  a  select  few  was  no  pe- 
culiarity of  the  New  Haven  colonies :  that  at  Charlestown- 
Boston  had  been  constituted  by  four  men.  But  the  number 
seven,  based  doubtless  on  Proverbs  ix.  i,  was  certainly  un- 
usual elsewhere  in  New  England.  The  church  gathered 
at  Dorchester  in  1636,  after  the  departure  of  Warham  to 
Windsor,  was  constituted  by  the  covenant  vows  of  seven 
persons,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  number 
there  was  more  than  accidental. 

As  New  Haven  colony  was  the  last  of  the  Puritan  col- 
onies, so  in  some  respects  it  marks  the  most  radical  de- 
parture of  any  from  English  ecclesiastical  ideals.  Its  civil 
state  was  even  more  distinctly  based  on  a  compact  than 
that  of  Plymouth.  Its  code  of  laws  was  avowedly  the 
Bible.  It  almost  seems  as  if  the  theory  of  churchly  in- 
dependency which  these  colonists  represented  was  carried 
over  to  the  state  in  the  complete  autonomy  of  each  local 
community  in  which  they  began.  The  system  they  would 
maintain  was  truly  a  theocracy,  for  it  was  an  attempt  to 
be  ruled  in  all  things  by  the  Word  of  God.  Yet  even  in 
this  extremest  form  New  England  Puritanism  never  abso- 
lutely merged  church  and  state.  The  condition  of  a  voice 
in  the  state  was  membership  in  the  church,  but  when  that 
voice  was  expressed  it  was  not  as  the  church,  but  as  the 
civil  "court  "  of  legislation  and  adjudication.  Church  and 
state   micrht   and   sometimes   did    trench   on   each  other's 


124  THE'  CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iv. 

borders ;  but  in  early  New  England  theory,  and  largely  in 
practice,  they  were  distinct.  The  chief  peculiarities  of  New 
Haven,  including  its  restriction  of  the  franchise,  passed 
away  on  its  union  with  Connecticut  in  1664—65. 

It  has  thus  been  seen  that  Puritan  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions on  New  England  soil  shaped  themselves  essentially 
on  one  model — a  model  largely  that  of  Plymouth.  Minor 
unlikenesses  existed  between  church  and  church ;  dissimi- 
larities of  considerable  importance,  like  the  extent  of  the 
franchise,  distinguished  one  colony  from  another;  but 
when  all  these  have  been  taken  into  consideration,  the 
conclusion  remains  that  the  churches  of  early  New  Eng- 
land were  singularly  alike.  They  everywhere  presented 
the  conception  of  a  church  as  a  body  of  persons  of  relig- 
ious experience  bound  together  by  a  covenant,  choosing 
its  own  officers,  administering  its  own  affairs,  and  inde- 
pendent of  other  ecclesiastical  control.  They  stood  every- 
where, also,  for  a  free,  unliturgical  form  of  worship,  an 
educated  ministry,  and  a  strenuous  moral  discipline.  But 
if  the  model  set  at  the  beginning  led  to  a  high  degree  of 
local  independence,  other  characteristics  of  early  New 
England  ecclesiastical  life,  some  of  which  have  already 
been  touched  upon,  and  others  of  which  will  be  noted  in 
the  next  chapter,  prevented  this  centrifugal  tendency  from 
becoming  mutual  indifference.  The  connection  of  these 
churches  with  the  state,  the  repressive  measures  adopted 
toward  dissenters,  with  the  consequent  necessity  of  the 
formulation  of  their  own  standards,  led  also  to  the  growth 
of  a  spirit  of  fellowship  which  ultimately  developed  that 
sense  of  responsibility  of  one  church  for  another  that  dis- 
tinguishes American  Congregationalism  from  that  of  Eng- 
land, and  has  made  our  churches  something  more  organi- 
cally knit  together  than  a  convenient  grouping  of  local 
congregations  similar  in  polity. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    FELLOWSHIP. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  settlers  of  New 
England  came  with  no  intention  of  establishing  general 
freedom  of  worship  or  extended  religious  toleration.  Their 
belief  in  the  Scripture  was  profound,  their  feeling  that  the 
Church  of  England  as  then  administered  did  not  represent 
the  biblical  model  was  intense,  and  their  great  desire  was 
to  set  up  the  institutions  which  they  believed  the  Scriptures 
required.  Had  they  approved  a  general  toleration,  the 
majority  of  them  would  probably  have  never  left  their 
English  homes.  It  was  their  confidence  that  the  beliefs 
they  maintained  were,  within  narrow  ranges  of  possible 
divergence  of  opinion,  the  only  beliefs  that  were  true,  that 
nerved  the  emigrants  for  the  sacrifices  involved  in  leaving 
their  native  island  and  gave  much  of  its  strength  to  the 
New  England  character.  And  once  in  possession  of  a 
country  where  they  could  establish  institutions  of  their 
own,  they  did  not  propose  to  imperil  their  work  by  allow- 
ing extensive  dissent  from  their  methods  either  in  church 
or  state.  This  attitude  of  mind,  more  conspicuously  illus- 
trated in  the  Puritan  colonies  than  in  Plymouth,  and 
most  of  all  evident  in  Massachusetts,  led  to  acts  of  banish- 
ment and  repression  scarcely  more  defensible  in  some  in- 
stances than  those  of  Laud,  which  constitute  an  unattract- 
ive chapter  in  the  story  of  men  otherwise  so  conspicuous 
for  statesmanship.  Christian  character,  and  lofty  purposes. 
But  it  is  a  chapter  that  cannot  be  passed  over  if  we  are  to 

125 


126  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v= 

understand  the  founders  of  New  England ;  and  it  is  of 
great  importance  for  the  history  of  Congregationalism, 
since  the  measures  undertaken  to  repress  dissent  and  to 
secure  uniformity  crystallized  the  at  first  somewhat  solvent 
polity,  gave  to  it  standards  of  government  and  faith,  and 
by  compelling  consultation  and  united  action  emphasized 
the  principle  of  fellowship  in  Congregationalism.  The 
methods  by  which  dissent  was  suppressed  often  deserve 
censure ;  but  this  exclusive  dominance  of  the  Congre- 
gational system  enabled  it  to  mold  popular  thought  in 
church  and  state,  to  become  developed  along  the  lines  of 
its  own  genius,  and  by  fashioning  the  ideas  of  successive 
generations  to  affect  American  civil  and  religious  life  as  it 
might  not  otherwise  have  done. 

During  all  of  their  seventeenth  century  history,  save 
when  England  was  under  the  Commonwealth,  the  New 
England  colonies  were  in  a  most  difficult  position ;  and 
this  was  especially  true  of  Massachusetts,  which,  as  the 
largest  and  most  representative,  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
criticism.  On  the  one  hand,  their  leaders  were  determined 
to  maintain  the  religious  system  and  the  civil  institutions  of 
which  they  approved ;  on  the  other,  none  of  the  colonies 
save  Massachusetts  had  a  royal  charter  till  Connecticut 
received  one  in  1662,  and  though  the  Massachusetts  charter 
was  liberal  in  its  provisions  for  a  trading  and  colonizing 
company,  it  required  considerable  stretching  of  its  con- 
ferred powers  to  make  it  the  basis  of  a  semi-independent 
state.  Hence  the  Massachusetts  colony  was  always  liable 
to  be  called  to  account  by  those  unfavorable  to  its  eccle- 
siastical system  or  its  political  methods ;  and  the  great 
anxiety  of  the  Massachusetts  authorities  was  to  prevent 
any  disturbances  within  the  colony  or  appeals  from  its 
jurisdiction  wliich  should  gi\-e  occasion  for  questioning 
its  action  or  its  institutions ;  and  hence,  also,  their  acts  of 


A   DIFFICULT  SITUATION.  12/ 

repression  had  almost  always  a  twofold  motive,  the  one 
aiming  at  the  preservation  of  religious  and  political  uni- 
formity, the  other  having  regard  to  the  prevention  of  inter- 
ference from  England.  This  dual  aspect  of  the  repressive 
acts  of  colonial  governments,  and  especially  of  Massachu- 
setts, has  often  been  forgotten  by  historians,  and  the 
actions  of  the  civil  authorities  have  either  been  denounced 
as  pure  religious  bigotry,  or  excused  as  entirely  due  to 
political  necessity.  In  point  of  fact,  both  elements  entered 
into  the  motives  of  the  leaders  of  early  New  England,  and 
it  is  often  impossible  to  say  which  predominated ;  and 
while  we  may  wish  that  New  England  might  have  ex- 
hibited the  toleration  displayed  by  Holland  under  very 
different  circumstances,  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether 
a  general  toleration  would  have  produced  that  sturdy  spirit 
of  independence  which  ultimately  secured  political  freedom 
from  Great  Britain,  or  whether  internal  commotions  would 
not  have  given  the  ever  ready  English  Government  ex- 
cuse for  disastrous  interference  when  as  yet  New  England 
institutions  were  in  the  formative  stage.  It  was  because 
the  leaders  of  New  England  believed  that  they  had  a  cause 
worth  defending  that  they  were  so  tenacious  in  its  support 
against  opposition  at  home  and  abroad.  Doubtless  the 
same  is  true  of  Laud  or  Philip  II.  ;  but  the  situation  of 
New  England  was  essentially  unlike  that  of  England  or 
Spain.  A  few  feeble  colonies  maintaining  their  institu- 
tional integrity  in  the  face  of  a  powerful  and  menacing 
home  government  were  not  in  the  condition  of  countries 
whose  independence  and  autonomy  were  practically  un- 
shakable. Probably  the  New  England  leaders  would  have 
had  little  sympathy  with  extensive  divergence  from  their 
views  under  any  circumstances ;  but  the  peculiar  situation 
of  New  England  was  such  as  to  provoke  and  intensify 
repressive  measures,  for  it  added  fear  as  to  the  permanency 


128  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  V. 

of  the  state  itself  to  feelings  of  religious  concern.  No 
estimate  of  the  attitude  of  the  fathers  of  Puritan  Congre- 
gationalism toward  those  who  differed  with  them  is  cor- 
rect which  ignores  the  influence  of  a  situation  of  extreme 
public  peril  in  intensifying  the  antipathy  which  they  felt 
toward  that  which  they  deemed  subversive  of  the  principles 
they  had  made  such  sacrifices  to  put  into  practice. 

The  interference  of  the  civil  authorities  of  New  England 
in  matters  of  faith  and  practice  began  early.  The  case  of 
the  Brownes  at  Salem  has  already  been  noticed,  and  the 
uncompromising  action  of  Endicott  has  been  seen  in  send- 
ing them  out  of  the  colony  when  their  separate  worship, 
even  though  that  of  the  English  Establishment,  threatened 
to  divide  the  scanty  inhabitants  of  the  wilderness  planta- 
tion. From  the  first,  the  Massachusetts  authorities  exer- 
cised the  power  of  ridding  their  territories  of  persons 
obnoxious  in  civil  or  religious  affairs  by  what  was  prac- 
tically banishment,  even  though  that  word  of  somewhat 
technical  legal  import  be  strictly  applicable  only  to  a  sen- 
tence of  Parliament.  Thus  in  September,  1630,  the  court 
directed  the  notorious  Thomas  INIorton  of  Mount  Wollas- 
ton  to  be  sent  to  England,  his  goods  seized  to  pay  the 
cost  of  his  passage,  and  his  house  burned.  In  March, 
1 63 1,  six  persons  were  ordered  back  to  England  as 
"  vnmeete  to  inhabit  here  "  ;  in  May  of  that  year  two  were 
sentenced  to  leave  the  colony  before  October  20th,  their 
offense  being  "  contempt  of  authoritie  &  confrontinge  offi- 
cers "  ;  in  June  following  Philip  Ratliffe  was  "banished," 
in  addition  to  the  loss  of  his  ears  and  a  fine  of  £a^O,  "  for 
vttering  mallitious  &  scandulous  speeches  against  the 
gou'm^  &  the  church  of  Salem  "  ;  and  during  the  next 
September  Henry  Lynn  was  "  whipped  and  banished  .  .  . 
for  writeing  into  England  falsely  &  mallitiously  against  the 
gou'm^  &  execucon  of  justice  here." 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  1 29 

These  cases,  most  of  which  did  not  involve  religious  con- 
siderations in  the  remotest  degree,  show  that  banishment 
was  no  unusual  remedy  for  the  ills  of  the  body  politic, 
nor  one  that  was  first  employed  in  the  case  of  Roger  Will- 
iams. This  able,  personally  lovable,  but  exceedingly  erratic 
man  was  probably  a  Londoner  by  origin,  who  graduated 
from  Cambridge  in  January,  1627,  and  then  held  a  chap- 
laincy to  Sir  William  Masham,  of  Otes,  county  of  Essex. 
Here  he  adopted  Separatist  views,  and  as  a  Separatist  in 
feeling  he  came  to  New  England  in  1631.  As  such  he 
refused  to  minister  to  the  Boston  church,  or  even  to  enter 
its  membership,  because  he  "  durst  not  officiate  to  an  un- 
separated  people,"  and  "  because  they  would  not  make  a 
public  declaration  of  their  repentance  for  having  com- 
munion with  the  churches  of  England  while  they  lived 
there."  -With  this  illiberal  attitude,  Williams,  like  Robert 
Browne,  combined  a  view  in  another  direction  quite  in 
advance  of  the  current  opinions  of  his  age.  With  Browne 
he  held  that  the  civil  ruler  should  not  enforce  the  observ- 
ance of  "  first  table,"  i.e.,  the  first  four  commandments, 
which  the  theory  of  that  age  held  to  cover  the  field  of 
right  belief  and  worship.  The  particular  form  of  magis- 
terial interference  to  which  Williams  objected  was  the 
punishment  of  "the  breach  of  the  Sabbath."  Shortly 
after  his  refusal  to  serve  the  Boston  church,  Williams 
was  called  to  the  teachership  made  vacant  at  Salem  by 
the  death  of  Higginson — that  church  having  advanced,  it 
would  appear,  to  a  more  distinctly  Separatist  position  than 
the  Boston  congregation  occupied.  On  news  of  this  call 
the  six  members  of  the  Court  of  Assistants,  which  met  on 
April  1 2th,  sent  an  informal  letter  to  Endicott  advising 
delay.  Probably  this  letter  interrupted  the  action  of  the 
Salem  church,  for  from  the  autumn  of  1631  to  the  summer 
of  1633  Williams  assisted  Rev.  Ralph  Smith  in  the  care  of 


1 30  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

the  Plymouth  church,  and  there  began  the  study  of  the 
Indian  tongues,  which  he  was  to  put  to  so  conspicuous 
use.  From  Plymouth,  where  he  left  the  impression  on 
Bradford  of  being  "  a  man  godly  and  zealous,  having  many 
precious  parts,  but  very  unsettled  in  judgmente,"  Will- 
iams returned  to  Salem,  and  after  assisting  Skelton,  he 
succeeded  within  a  few  months  of  Skelton's  decease  to  the 
pastorate  of  the  Salem  church. 

The  time  was  one  of  special  peril  and  anxiety  in  the 
colony.  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  had  obtained  the  ear  of 
Laud  in  1634,  and  had  set  the  machinery  in  motion  for  the 
revocation  of  the  Massachusetts  charter,  the  suppression 
of  the  New  England  Puritans,  the  establishment  in  the 
Puritan  colonies  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  ap- 
pointment of  Gorges  himself  as  governor  of  the  recon- 
structed territories.  The  danger  for  the  next  five  years 
was  very  real.  The  colonial  authorities  temporized,  they 
fortified  Boston  Harbor,  they  stirred  up  all  the  friends 
they  could  muster  in  England ;  but  had  Gorges  had  more 
money  to  fit  out  an  expedition,  or  had  not  the  resistance 
of  the  Scotch  to  Laud's  attempt  in  1637  to  introduce  epis- 
copacy into  their  churches  distracted  the  attention  of  the 
royal  government,  it  would  have  gone  hard  with  Con- 
gregationalism in  America.  Such  a  time  of  anxiety  de- 
manded unity  at  home,  or  at  least  the  avoidance  of  all 
acts  that  might  precipitate  the  forcible  overthrow  of  their 
governments  which  the  colonies  feared. 

But  Williams  was  not  a  man  to  be  moved  by  consider- 
ations of  expediency.  During  his  stay  at  Phmouth  he 
had  written  an  essay  to  pro\-e  that  royal  charters  were 
worthless,  since  not  the  king  but  the  Indian  natives  had  a 
right  to  give  title  to  the  land  ;  that  King  James  was  a  liar 
and  blasphemer  in  that  he  had  called  Europe  "  Christen- 
ilom  "  and  spoken  of  himself  as  "  the  first  Christian  prince 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  131 

that  had  discovered  this  land  " ;  and  that  King  Charles 
was  aptly  described  in  Revelation  xvi.  13,  14,  xvii.  12,  13, 
and  xviii.  9 ;  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  colonists 
to  repent  of  their  sin  in  receiving  such  a  patent.  Aside 
from  the  inexpediency  of  insulting  powers  already  suffi- 
ciently hostile,  there  seems  to  be  reason  to  doubt  whether 
Williams  had  ever  read  the  charters  of  1620  or  1629,  for 
the  passages  of  wh'ich  he  com^plains  do  not  appear  in  them  ; 
and  the  company  had  been  explicit  in  its  directions  that 
Indian  claimants  should  be  satisfied.  Nor  does  it  add  to 
our  estimate  of  the  worth  of  Williams's  criticisms  to  learn 
that  he  himself  gave  them  so  little  weight  as  to  own  a 
house  at  Salem,  which  by  his  own  principles  must  have 
been  held  ultimately  on  a  dishonest  title.  On  hearing  of 
the  existence  of  this  dangerous  document  Governor  Win- 
throp  asked  for  it,  and  submitted  it  to  his  brother  magis- 
trates on  December  27,  1633.  Admonished  by  the  magis- 
trates, Williams  now  disclaimed  any  intention  to  make 
trouble,  and  offered  to  allow  his  book  to  be  burned ;  and 
so  the  matter  rested  for  a  little. 

Whether  Williams  instigated,  as  Endicott  certainly 
effected,  the  mutilation  of  the  English  flag  at  Salem  in 
November,  1634,  by  cutting  out  the  cross  "as  a  relique 
of  Antichrist"  is  possibly  uncertain,  though  exceedingly 
probable  and  characteristic  in  its  perilous  disregard  of 
the  critical  situation  of  the  colony.  But  by  December, 
1634,  Williams  was  once  more  "  teaching  publickly  against 
the  king's  patent,  and  our  great  sin  in  claiming  right 
thereby  to  this  country,"  and  denouncing  the  churches  of 
England  as  "  antichristian."  In  the  previous  April  King 
Charles  had  appointed  a  commission,  having  Laud  as  its 
head,  with  power  to  recall  charters  and  inflict  any  form 
of  punishment;  and  it  seemed  probable  enough  that 
Massachusetts  would  be  speedily  deprived  of  any   legal 


132  THE   CONGREGATIOXALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

title  without  the  aid  of  denunciations  by  her  own  in- 
habitants. 

WilHams  soon  advanced  to  more  annoying  if  less  vital 
criticisms.  In  its  peril  the  court  ordered,  in  April,  1634, 
that  all  residents  of  the  colony  should  take  oath  to  obey 
its  laws  and  reveal  plots  against  its  welfare.  But  to  Will- 
iams's thinking  an  oath  was  an  act  of  worship,  and  since 
it  was  a  sin  to  "have  communion  with'a  wicked  man  in 
the  worship  of  God,"  no  magistrate  had  a  right  to  call  on 
any  unregenerate  person  to  make  oath.  Just  about  the 
time  that  Williams  began  to  vent  these  opinions,  the  church 
at  Salem,  which  had  enjoyed  his  ministry  for  more  than 
a  year,  ordained  him  to  its  pastorate.  The  views  of  the 
minister  and  the  action  of  the  church  caused  great  alarm 
to  the  magistrates,  and  as  a  consequence,  Williams  was 
summoned  before  the  court  in  July,  1635.  Here  he  was 
charged  with  teaching  that  the  civil  ruler  had  no  right  to 
punish  breaches  of  the  "  first  table,"  that  the  oath  could 
not  be  tendered  to  an  unregenerate  man,  nor  could  a  man 
pray  without  sin  with  his  own  wife  or  child  if  they  were 
unregenerate.  The  court  called  on  the  ministers  of  the 
colony  for  advice,  and  "  the  said  opinions  were  adjudged 
by  all,  magistrates  and  ministers,  .  .  .  to  be  .  .  .  very 
dangerous  "  ;  and  the  action  of  the  Salem  church  in  "  call- 
ing of  him  to  office,  at  that  time,  was  judged  a  great  con- 
tempt of  authority."  The  court  gave  the  Salem  church 
and  its  pastor  till  its  next  meeting  to  think  matters  over. 

It  was  at  the  same  court  which  thus  severely  criticised 
the  Salem  minister  and  church  that  a  petition,  presented 
by  the  representatives  of  Salem,  and  claiming  title  in  the 
name  of  the  town  to  certain  lands,  was  laid  on  the  table 
pending  the  settlement  of  these  disputes.  The  action  of 
the  court  in  so  doing  was  no  more  than  might  be  expected 
of  ordinary  human  nature  probably  ;  but  it  was  a  mixing 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  I  33 

of  two  distinct  questions,  which  should  have  been  kept 
separate.  Possibly  the  court  doubted  a  little  the  loyalty 
of  the  Salem  people ;  but  the  tabling  of  the  petition  looks 
more  like  a  disposition  to  punish  the  Salem  church-mem- 
bers for  their  certainly  exasperating  course.  But  Williams 
met  it  with  an  act  which  showed  that  whatever  might  be 
his  theory  as  to  the  wrongfulness  of  coercion  by  magis- 
trates in  matters  of  worship,  Sabbath-keeping,  and  belief, 
he  had  no  hesitation  in  applying  churchly  censure  to  com- 
pel votes  in  purely  secular  questions.  With  the  approval 
of  the  Salem  church,  he  now  sent  letters  to  the  other 
churches  whose  members  had  voted  in  the  court  on  the 
land  question,  calling  on  them  to  discipline  these  magis- 
trates for  the  action  taken  on  the  petition.  On  receipt  of 
these  letters  some  of  the  churches,  and  notably  those  of 
Boston  and  Newtown  under  the  lead  of  Cotton  and  Hooker, 
remonstrated  with  the  Salem  communion,  and  with  such 
effect  that  the  majority  of  that  body  began  to  be  ashamed 
of  their  course  and  critical  of  the  wisdom  of  their  pastor. 
On  perceiving  that  he  had  lost  his  hold  on  his  own  con- 
gregation, Williams  now  turned  on  it,  and  by  a  letter  of 
August  16,  1635,  announced  to  it  that  he  had  separated 
from  all  the  other  churches  of  Massachusetts,  and  would 
renounce  communion  with  that  of  Salem  unless  it  would 
follow  him  in  cutting  off  fellowship  with  its  sister  congre- 
gations "as  full  of  antichristian  pollution."  The  majority 
of  the  Salem  church  had  no  sympathy  with  this  demand ; 
but  Williams  was  fully  determined,  refusing  even  to  hold 
family  prayers  or  say  grace  at  table  in  the  presence  of  his 
wife  so  long  as  she  continued  to  worship  in  the  congrega- 
tion of  which  he  was  still  in  name  pastor. 

On  its  assembly  at  Cambridge  in  September  the  court 
took  cognizance  of  the  censorious  letters  of  the  Salem 
church  designed  to  bring  church  censure  to  bear  upon  the 


134  ^-^^^    COXGREGATIOiVALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

magistrates,  by  ordering  home  the  Salem  deputies,  and 
directing  that  Salem  should  send  its  representatives  to  the 
court  when  the  major  part  of  its  voters  (of  course  church- 
members)  had  disclaimed  the  offensive  epistles.  They 
complied ;  but  the  court  showed  no  haste  in  dealing  with 
Williams  himself.  It  was  not  till  more  than  a  month  had 
elapsed  after  its  first  meeting  that  Williams  was  brought 
before  it.  Here,  the  advice  of  the  ministers  of  the  colony 
ha\-ing  been  had,  Williams  was  taken  to  task  on  October 
8th  for  his  letters  defamatory  of  the  Christian  character  of 
the  Massachusetts  churches,  and  for  his  other  well-known 
opinions ;  and,  on  his  defense  of  his  views,  was  offered  a 
month  for  further  thought.  This  he  refused,  and  Rev. 
Thomas  Hooker  was  appointed  to  argue  with  him.  As 
far  as  any  evidence  of  the  nature  of  the  debate  has  come 
down  to  us,  it  was  of  an  exceedingly  dialectic  and  hair- 
splitting sort,  turning  on  the  right  of  a  Christian  to  share 
in  oaths,  grace  at  table,  and  the  like,  with  non-Christians. 
But,  as  was  probably  to  be  expected,  Hooker  "  could  not 
reduce  him  from  any  of  his  errors."  The  court  therefore 
proceeded  on  October  9,  1635,  to  pass  sentence  upon 
him :  "  Whereas  M^  Rogei  Williams  .  .  .  hath  broached 
&  dyvulged  dyvers  newe  &  dangerous  opinions,  against 
the  aucthoritie  of  magistrates,  as  also  writt  l[ettejres  of 
defamacon,  both  of  the  magistrates  &  churches  here,  & 
that  before  any  conviccon,  and  yet  mainetaineth  the  same 
without  retraccon,  it  is  therefore  ordered,  that  the  said 
Mr  Williams  shall  dep'te  out  of  this  jurisdiccon  within  sixe 
weekes  nowe  nexte  ensueing." 

Governor  Haynes,  the  most  prominent  layman  in 
Hooker's  congregation,  and  later  to  be  a  leader  in  Con- 
necticut, summed  up  the  case  and  spoke  the  verdict.  In 
his  speech  he  charged  Williams  with  four  errors:  his  at- 
tack on  the  charters,  his  denunciation  of  oaths  and  acts  of 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  I  35 

worship  shared  in  by  the  unregenerate,  his  affirmation  that 
it  was  a  sin  to  hear  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England 
in  the  home  country,  and  his  denial  of  authority  to  magis- 
trates in  matters  of  belief.  The  fourth  point  in  Haynes's 
summary,  which  we  know  only  from  Williams's  own  re- 
port, is  of  course  the  most  famous ;  but  neither  Williams 
nor  the  court  regarded  it  as  the  chief  ground  of  his  ban- 
ishment. 

By  the  strict  letter  of  the  sentence  Williams  would  have 
been  compelled  to  leave  the  Massachusetts  colony  for 
England,  Plymouth,  or  the  unsettled  regions  about  Narra- 
gansett  Bay  whither  Winthrop  had  advised  him  to  go,  by 
November  20th ;  but  before  that  time  he  was  ill,  and  the 
Massachusetts  authorities  consented  to  his  stay  at  Salem 
till  spring,  on  condition  that  he  would  not  make  proselytes. 
This  was  doubtless  too  hard  a  condition  for  a  man  of 
Williams's  disposition — at  all  events,  he  gathered  hearers 
in  his  house,  did  "  preach  to  them,  even  of  such  points  as 
he  had  been  censured  for,"  and  had  drawn  "  above  twenty 
persons  to  his  opinion."  The  chief  burden  of  this  preach- 
ing was  still  the  old  cry  of  the  impurity  of  the  Massachu- 
setts churches  in  that  they  allowed  their  members  who 
returned  on  visits  to  England  to  listen  uncensured  to  the 
ministers  of  the  Establishment.  For  this  renewed  act  of 
opposition  the  court  proposed  to  ship  Williams  to  Eng- 
land, but  he  anticipated  their  designs  by  flight,  and  after 
a  hard  winter  sojourn  among  the  Indians,  he  began  laying 
the  foundations  of  Providence  with  the  aid  of  sympathizers 
who  accompanied  and  followed  him.  Here  he  came  to 
doubt  his  English  baptism — a  matter  not  surprising  in  one 
so  stoutly  Separatist  in  his  attitude  toward  the  English 
Church — and,  apparently  under  the  influence  of  these 
doubts,  he  developed  Baptist  opinions  not  held  while  in 
Massachusetts.      As  a  result,  he  was  baptized  by  Ezekiel 


136  THE    CONGREGATIOXALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

Holliman  in  1638,  and  to  HoUiman  and  ten  others  he  in 
turn  administered  the  rite.  Yet  Wilhams  did  not  long 
remain  in  the  fellowship  of  this  first  American  Baptist 
Church.  After  three  or  four  months  of  walking  in  the 
Baptist  way  he  declared  "  that  their  baptism  could  not 
be  right,  because  it  was  not  administered  by  an  apostle  "  ; 
and  from  thenceforward  to  his  death,  in  1684,  he  remained 
a  "  seeker,"  ready  to  preach  or  pray  with  all,  but  holding 
that  the  church  and  its  ordinances  could  be  reestablished 
only  by  a  new  apostolic  manifestation. 

Doubtless  it  would  have  been  better,  taking  the  wide 
future  into  view,  if  the  Massachusetts  governrnent  had 
allowed  Roger  Williams  to  turmoil  the  Salem  community, 
to  denounce  the  charters,  to  decry  the  oaths  of  fidelity, 
and  to  refuse  to  admit  to  his  congregation  those  who  did 
not  repent  of  once  having  been  of  the  communion  of  the 
Church  of  England.  Doubtless  Massachusetts  lost  some- 
thing of  variety,  and  it  may  be  of  breadth  of  thought,  in 
depriving  itself  of  the  stimulus  of  so  constant  and  so 
conscientious  a  critic  as  Williams.  It  is  a  loss  to  any 
community  to  lose  any  good  man,  and  especially  if  he 
be  a  man  of  talent  and  in  any  way  a  man  of  progress,  as 
Williams  undoubtedly  was  in  his  doctrine  of  freedom  of 
belief.  But  there  are  times  in  nascent  communities,  as 
well  as  in  plant  life,  when  rest  seems  the  condition  of  tak- 
ing root,  and  to  the  men  of  Massachusetts  there  was  much 
in  the  hard-pressed  situation,  of  the  colony  to  make  the 
most  kindly  of  them  believe  this  to  be  such  a  time. 

Williams's  banishment  was  for  reasons  affecting  the 
peace  of  the  state  and  the  churches  rather  than  their 
doctrine ;  but  it  led  to  results  of  permanent  influence  on 
American  Congregationalism.  As  has  been  seen,  Will- 
iams in  his  attack  upon  the  magistrates  appealed  in  the 
name  of  the  Salem  church  to  its  sister  churches ;  and  they 


EFFECTS   OF   THE  DISCUSSION.  137 

in  turn  labored  with  the  Salem  body,  and  not  in  vain. 
The  dispute  brought  out,  as  nothing  before  in  the  brief 
history  of  New  England  had  done,  the  sense  of  fellowship 
and  mutual  responsibility  between  churches,  which  had 
been  foreshadowed  in  Bradford's  right  hand  of  fellowship 
to  the  Salem  church  in  1629,  but  which  is  so  characteristic 
a  feature  of  American,  as  distinguished  from  English,  Con- 
gregationalism. All  these  tendencies  were  strengthened 
by  the  action  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Court  in  the 
spring  of  1636 — action  which  was  but  the  logical  outcome 
of  its  restriction  of  the  franchise  to  church-members  in 
1 63 1,  but  which  was  occasioned  apparently  by  the  divi- 
sions of  Williams's  Salem  congregation  and  a  dispute 
which  had  arisen  at  Lynn  involving  a  possible  schism  in 
the  church  there  on  personal  grounds.  In  March,  1636, 
the  court  voted  that  no  body  of  men  associated  after  the 
passage  of  this  law  should  be  approved  as  a  church,  "  with- 
out they  shall  first  acquainte  the  magistrates,  &  the  elders 
of  the  great!"  p'te  of  the  churches  in  this  jurisdiccon,  with 
their  intencons,  and  have  their  approbacon  herein." 

This  course  of  procedure  had  been  voluntarily  adopted 
by  the  company,  which  organized  a  church  at  Cambridge 
on  the  1st  of  February  previous  to  this  vote,  and  there 
is  reason  to  believe  that  it  had  been  followed  in  other 
cases ;  but  it  was  now  made  obligatory.  The  consent  of 
the  ministers  and  the  magistrates  (themselves  church- 
members)  was  now  essential  to  the  gathering  of  a  church. 
Though  not  in  form  a  Congregational  council,  it  made 
such  a  council  practically  a  necessary  step  in  church-for- 
mation, and  thus  immensely  strengthened  the  sense  of 
mutual  responsibility  between  churches.  The  statute  was 
no  meaningless  enactment.  In  April,  1636,  less  than  a 
month  after  its  passage,  Rev.  Richard  Mather  and  his 
Dorchester  associates  sought  the  prescribed  approval  for 


138  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

their  gathering  in  church  estate.  Their  case  was  duly 
investigated,  and  though  their  "  confession  of  faith  "  was 
approved,  so  strong  were  the  doubts  felt  as  to  the  Chris- 
tian experience  of  most  of  the  applicants  that  it  was  not 
till  the  following  August  that  their  desire  was  granted. 
Indeed,  had  the  court's  wishes  been  fulfilled,  Congregation- 
alism would  have  reached  a  greater  degree  of  consolida- 
tion as  a  consequence  of  the  Williams  dispute  than  it 
actually  attained.  A  year  before  the  vote  just  quoted,  in 
March,  1635,  the  court  had  requested  "of  the  elders  & 
brethren  of  eu'y  church  within  this  jurisdiccon  that  they 
will  consult  &  advise  of  one  vniforme  order  of  dissipline 
in  the  churches,  agreeable  to  the  Scriptures,  &  then  to 
consider  howe  farr  the  magistrates  are  bound  to  interpose 
for  the  preservacon  of  that  vniformity  &  peace  of  the 
churches  "  ;  but  nothing  had  come  of  it,  nor  was  it  to  bear 
full  fruitage  till  the  Cambridge  Synod  of  1646-48. 

This  impulse  toward  Congregational  consolidation,  grow- 
ing out  of  the  Williams  controversy  and  the  consequent 
measures  adopted  in  church  and  state,  was  greatly  strength- 
ened by  a  second  and  more  purely  theological  dispute, 
which  arose  speedily  after  Williams's  banishment — the  so- 
called  Antinomian  episode.  In  this  discussion  the  colonial 
authorities  acted  on  a  larger  scale  and  with  less  political 
justification  than  in  the  affair  of  Williams,  and  the  conse- 
quences were  correspondingly  greater.  The  source  from 
^\'hich  this  new  commotion  had  its  origin  was  a  warm- 
hearted, magnetic,  and  keen-tongued  woman,  Mrs.  Anne 
Hutchinson,  who,  with  her  husband,  William  Hutchinson, 
had  come  to  Boston  in  1634,  having  been  a  warm  admirer 
of  Cotton  in  old  England,  and  being  attracted  across  the 
ocean  by  his  example.  A  woman  of  much  skill  in  nursing, 
and  self-sacrificing  in  her  devotion  to  those  of  her  own  sex 
who  needed  her  services,  she  soon  endeared  herself  to  a 


THE   "  ANTINOMIANS."  I  39 

large  circle  in  the  little  colonial  seaport.  To  these  friends 
she  talked  on  what  was  the  great  theme  of  interest — re- 
ligion ;  and  especially  on  the  merits  and  demerits  of  the 
discourses  of  the  colonial  ministers.  These  meetings,  at 
first  confined  to  her  own  sex,  grew  rapidly  in  popularity, 
and  as  they  increased  in  attendance  enlarged  in  scope, 
until  they  became  a  religious  power  in  the  little  commu- 
nity. The  views  which  Mrs.  Hutchinson  unfolded  to  her 
admiring  auditors  were  those  now  known  as  "  perfection- 
ism," or  the  "  higher  life."  To  her  thinking,  the  Holy 
Spirit  dwells  in  every  believer  in  a  personal  union  so  as 
to  become  one  being  with  him,  and  so  as  to  preclude  the 
need  of  any  other  evidence  of  sanctification  than  a  con- 
sciousness of  this  divine  conjunction  to  prove  a  man  a 
Christian.  In  fact,  to  argue  the  existence  of  Christian 
character  from  betterment  of  morals,  delight  in  God's 
worship,  or  anything  short  of  a  conscious  feeling  of  union 
with  God,  was  to  rest  in  a  "  covenant  of  works  "  ;  while 
to  one  under  the  "  covenant  of  grace  "  divine  illumina- 
tion, complete  confidence,  and  undoubted  salvation  were 
assured. 

The  labors  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  at  first  approved  by 
the  authorities,  and  especially  by  Cotton,  did  not  come  to 
their  full  fruitage  till  1636,  when  two  other  forces  of  tur- 
moil had  been  added  to  the  Boston  community.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1635,  Henry  Vane,  later  to  be  Sir  Henry  and  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous  figures  of  the  great  drama  of  the 
English  Commonwealth,  landed  at  Boston.  Young,  hand- 
some, and  popular,  above  all  the  son  of  an  influential 
royal  counselor  at  a  time  when  Massachusetts  needed  all 
possible  aid  at  the  Court  of  Whitehall,  Vane  was  eagerly 
taken  up  by  a  colony  which  had  temporarily  tired  of  Win- 
throp  and  had  tried  Thomas  Dudley  and  John  Haynes  in 
the  gubernatorial  chair.      In  May,  1636,  Vane  was  elected 


I40  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

governor.  From  his  coming  to  Boston  Vane  was  actively 
in  sympathy  with  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  through  their  in- 
fluence the  Boston  church,  to  which  they  both  belonged, 
came  to  be  chiefly  of  the  same  way  of  thinking.  Its 
pastor,  Wilson,  and  Winthrop  opposed  the  movement. 
Cotton,  though  he  said  little,  was  counted  its  friend.  The 
second  element  of  strength  added  to  the  Hutchinsonian 
side  was  due  to  the  coming  into  the  colony  in  May,  1636, 
of  Mr.  Hutchinson's  brother-in-law.  Rev.  John  Wheel- 
wright, a  graduate  of  Cambridge  and  a  minister  of  the 
Church  of  England  of  pronounced  Puritan  beliefs. 

By  the  time  of  Wheelwright's  arrival  the  Boston  church 
was  in  a  divided  state.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  and  her  friends 
desired  to  have  him  as  one  of  the  ministers  of  that  church. 
Wilson  opposed,  and  was  now  openly  attacked,  as  under 
the  "covenant  of  works."  The  projected  calling  of  Wheel- 
wright failed  through  the  hostility  of  Winthrop,  in  a  debate 
which  involved  Vane,  Cotton,  and  Wheelwright  himself; 
but  he  was  given  a  ministerial  position  at  Mount  Wollas- 
ton,  then  a  Boston  territorial  appendage.  Yet  if  the  feeling 
of  Boston  was  warmly  Hutchinsonian,  that  of  the  churches 
and  ministers  of  the  other  towns  supported  Winthrop  and 
Wilson;  and  on  October  25,  1636,  a  meeting  of  ministers 
at  Boston  tried  in  vain  to  heal  the  breach.  By  the  out-of- 
Boston  party  Winthrop  was  looked  upon  as  the  champion 
of  good  order,  while  the  majority  of  the  Boston  church 
held  to  Vane,  who  more  and  more  represented  the  Hutch- 
insonian theories.  By  December,  1636,  the  ministers  of 
the  colony  appeared  before  the  magistrates,  where  Hugh 
Peter,  the  Salem  pastor,  openly  rebuked  Vane  as  respon- 
sible for  much  of  the  confusion ;  and  they  next  debated 
with  Mrs.  Hutchinson  herself,  who  maintained  her  favorite 
position  that  while  Cotton  and  Wheelwright  preached  the 
"  covenant  of  grace,"  the  rest  of  the  ministers  were  under 


THE   ''  ANTINOMIANS:'  I4I 

the  "  covenant  of  works,"  not  having  received  the  "  seal  " 
— or,  as  some  theological  circles  of  the  present  day  would 
say,  a  "second  blessing."  On  the  last  day  of  1636  the 
Boston  church,  led  by  Vane,  endeavored  to  censure  Wil- 
son ;  but  its  rule  requiring  unanimity  in  important  action 
prevented,  though  Cotton  admonished  his  colleague  before 
the  congregation.  And  at  a  fast  held  on  January  20, 
1637,  Wheelwright,  preaching  before  the  Boston  church, 
added  fuel  to  the  flame  by  describing  those  under  the 
"covenant  of  works"  as  "Antichrists."  As  Winthrop 
recorded,  "  it  began  to  be  as  common  here  to  distinguish 
between  men,  by  being  under  a  covenant  of  grace  or  a 
covenant  of  works,  as  in  other  countries  between  Protest- 
ants and  Papists." 

When  the  court  met  in  the  following  March,  Wheel- 
wright was  censured  for  this  sermon  by  the  majority,  in 
spite  of  the  protests  of  Vane  and  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
Boston  church.  The  dispute  had  now  involved  the  whole 
colony,  and  on  it  the  election  of  May,  1637,  turned,  with 
Winthrop  and  Vane  as  representatives  of  the  rival  inter- 
ests. At  this  election  Vane  and  his  friends  were  dropped 
from  office,  but  were  promptly  chosen  as  representatives 
of  Boston  as  a  reply  of  that  defiantly  Hutchinsonian  town 
to  the  substitution  of  Winthrop  for  Vane  in  the  governor- 
ship. The  successful  party  made  an  ungenerous  use  of 
their  victory  by  enacting  a  law  forbidding  the  entertain- 
ment of  strangers  for  more  than  three  weeks  without  the 
consent  of  the  magistrates — a  law  general  in  form,  but 
really  designed  to  prevent  the  settlement  in  the  colony  of 
friends  and  relatives  of  the  Hutchinsonian  faction  whose 
immigration  was  expected. 

The  supporters  of  the  "covenant  of  grace"  were  now 
politically  beaten  in  the  larger  field  of  colonial  interests ; 
but  in   Boston   they  were  dominant,  and  expressed  their 


1 42  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

dislike  of  their  opponent  heartily.  The  Boston  halberd- 
bearers,  who  had  lent  official  state  to  the  governor  on 
public  occasions,  refused  to  honor  Winthrop.  The  Boston 
levy  for  the  Pequot  campaign  largely  declined  to  serve  in 
the  little  army  of  the  colony,  because  the  Boston  pastor, 
Wilson,  was  chaplain,  and  he  was  under  the  "covenant  of 
works."  Certainly  affairs  seemed  moving  perilously  near 
to  civil  conflict. 

What  might  have  happened  had  Vane  remained  in  New 
England  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  the  Hutchinson  party 
received  a  staggering  blow  when  Vane,  who  had  not  re- 
covered from  his  disappointment  occasioned  by'  the  loss 
of  the  governorship,  sailed  for  England,  August  3,  1637. 
Two  days  after  Hooker  and  Stone  of  Hartford  and  other 
prominent  ministers  and  laymen  came  to  Boston,  called  to 
the  first  general  Congregational  council,  or,  as  they  styled 
it,  "synod."  The  suggestion  of  this  assembly  originated 
with  some  of  the  Massachusetts  ministers,  but  the  plan 
was  submitted  to  the  magistrates  for  their  consent,  and 
with  magisterial  approval  "  sundry  Elders  were  sent  for, 
from  other  jurisdictions,  and  messengers  from  all  the 
Churches  in  the  Country."  Though  its  summons  is  unre- 
corded in  the  Colonial  Records,  so  much  was  it  deemed  a 
creature  of  the  General  Court  that  the  board  of  its  attend- 
ants from  Massachusetts  and  the  traveling- expenses  as 
well  of  those  from  Connecticut  was  paid  from  the  colonial 
treasury.  Soon  after  Hooker's  arrival  in  Boston  with  the 
other  Connecticut  delegates,  the  date  of  the  synod's  open- 
ing was  fixed  by  the  ministers,  in  consultation  with  the 
magistrates,  for  August  30th,  at  Cambridge.  Here,  on 
the  day  appointed,  in  the  rude  meeting-house  that  pos- 
sessed the  distinction  of  having  "a  bell  upon  it,"  there 
gathered  not  only  "  all  the  teaching  elders  through  the 
countr}-,   and   some  new  come  out  of   England,   not  yet 


THE   FIRST  SYNOD.  1 43 

called  to  any  place  here,  as  Mr.  Davenport,"  later  of  New 
Haven,  numbering  perhaps  twenty-five  in  all,  but  with 
them  "  others  sent  by  the  churches " ;  and  with  these 
members  of  the  synod  proper  there  sat  the  Massachusetts 
magistrates,  as  assistants  in  debate  rather  than  as  voters. 
It  was  no  longer  a  mere  assemblage  of  ministers  such  as 
had  frequently  gathered  at  the  request  of  the  magistrates. 
The  body  was  distinctly  representative  of  the  churches, 
and,  as  such,  contained  the  deputies  of  the  ordinary  mem- 
bership which  distinguished  a  Congregational  council  from 
a  ministerial  convention,  and  gave  to  Congregationalism, 
even  in  its  most  theocratic  period,  a  democratic  character 
compared  with  other  polities.  It  marked  the  highest 
expression  yet  attained  of  that  sense  of  community  and 
responsibility,  of  fellowship  in  churchly  concerns,  which 
had  been  growing  in  New  England  since  the  days  of 
Fuller's  ministrations  at  Salem,  and  distinguishes  American 
Congregationalism  from  English  Independency. 

But  while  this  gathering  was  thus  momentous  for  Con- 
gregational history,  its  proceedings  exhibited  no  more 
toleration  than  those  of  the  court.  Under  the  joint  mod- 
eratorship  of  Thomas  Hooker  of  Hartford,  Conn.,  and  Peter 
Bulkeley  of  Concord,  Mass.,  and  with  John  Higginson  as 
its  scribe,  whom  the  New  England  ministers  had  been 
educating  out  of  love  for  his  short-lived  father,  the  synod 
held  its  sessions  for  twenty-four  days.  Some  eighty-two 
errors,  said  to  be  entertained  by  the  Hutchinsonian  party 
or  deducible  from  its  beliefs,  or  at  least  held  by  some  in 
New  England,  were  enumerated  and  condemned  by  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  assembly,  though  the  dele- 
gates of  the  Boston  church  protested,  and  some  of  them 
left  the  synod.  As  the  session  went  on.  Cotton  more  and 
more  came  over  to  the  majority,  so  that  Wheelwright  was 
left  alone.      Mrs.  Hutchinson's  large  "  set  assemblies  "  for 


144  '^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

women  were  "  agreed  to  be  disorderly  "  ;  and  the  public 
questioning  of  a  minister  by  a  "private  member"  at  the 
close  of  his  sermon  was  only  to  be  "  very  wisely  and  spar- 
ingly done." 

A  result  so  generally  harmonious  was  so  satisfactory  to 
Winthrop  in  particular  that  the  governor  proposed  that 
synods  should  be  annually  held;  but  for  this  development. 
Congregationalism  was  not  ready,  and  the  suggestion  was 
disapproved.  A  second  proposition  of  Winthrop,  that  the 
synod  should  decide  upon  the  method  of  ministerial  sup- 
port, was  laid  aside  by  the  ministers  with  a  high-minded- 
ness  usually  characteristic  of  the  New  England  clergy, 
"  lest  it  should  be  said  that  this  assembly  was  gathered 
for  their  private  advantage."  On  September  22d  the 
synod  adjourned. 

Since  the  Hutchinsonian  party  remained  openly  defiant 
of  the  synod's  conclusions,  the  court  felt  the  more  disposed 
to  take  sharp  measures  against  it.  At  the  November  ses- 
sion Wheelwright  and  Mrs.  Hutchinson  were  sentenced  to 
banishment,  the  latter  after  claiming  direct  divine  revela- 
tions ;  and,  by  an  arbitrary  stretch  of  authority,  the  re- 
monstrance which  the  people  of  Boston  had  addressed 
to  a  previous  legislature  in  March,  1637,  praying  that  the 
court  would  not  interfere  with  Wheelwright,  was  now  in- 
terpreted as  constructive  sedition,  and  those  of  its  signers 
who  would  not  express  their  contrition  were  disarmed  and 
some  of  them  disfranchised.  With  the  fifty-eight  thus 
deprived  of  their  arms  in  Boston,  seventeen  persons  in  five 
other  towns,  were  joined  by  the  court.  The  result  was 
the  complete  break-down  of  opposition.  Public  feeling  in 
Boston  changed,  or  at  least  was  silenced ;  Cotton  was  now 
wholly  identified  with  the  majority.  In  March,  1638,  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  \\\\o  had  been  permitted  to  remain  through 
the  winter  in  Mas.'^achusetts,  was  brought  before  the  Boston 


FATE    OF   THE  ANTINOMIANS.  145 

church,  of  v/hich  she  was  a  member,  and  where  she  had 
formerly  enjoyed  the  sympathy  of  the  majority;  and,  after 
a  trial  reflecting  little  credit  on  any  concerned,  she  was 
excommunicated.  Going  to  Rhode  Island  soon  after  her 
excommunication,  she  lived  near  the  present  Newport  till 
1642,  when  she  removed  to  Manhattan  Island,  then  under 
Dutch  jurisdiction,  and  was  there  murdered  by  the  Indians 
with  most  of  her  family  in  August  of  the  next  year.  Her 
connection.  Wheelwright,  began  the  hard  wilderness  life 
anew  in  the  winter  of  1636-37  at  Exeter,  N.  H.  ;  but 
ultimately  returned  to  Massachusetts,  and  died  in  1679 
as  pastor  of  the  church  at  Salisbury.  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
sympathizer,  William  Coddington,  became  one  of  the 
founders  of  Rhode  Island  institutions. 

The  main  actors  in  these  proscriptions  naturally  desired 
to  make  the  religious  element  in  them  seem  as  slight  as 
possible,  while  they  emphasized  the  civil  breach  of  peace 
which  these  troubles  threatened.  No  doubt  they  sincerely 
beheved  the  danger  of  pohtical  division,  especially  in  the 
threatening  attitude  of  the  English  Government,  a  very 
real  peril.  No  doubt,  too,  they  sincerely  feared  an  out- 
burst of  fanaticism  such  as  men  had  associated  for  a 
century,  for  the  most  part  wrongly  enough,  with  "Ana- 
baptism  "  or  "Antinomianisrri."  But  the  religious  motive 
was  the  leading  impulse  on  both  sides,  and  if  it  led  on 
the  one  to  mystical  and  erroneous  views,  it  led  on  the 
other  to  persecution  as  real  as  it  was  unjustifiable.  It 
led  also,  as  our  story  has  pointed  out,  to  a  remarkable 
development  of  the  principle  of  fellowship  in  Congrega- 
tionalism, which  involved  the  calling  of  the  first  general 
council. 

Unfortunately,  the  spirit  of  persecution  once  aroused 
was  not  easily  checked.  The  political  necessities  which 
largely  justified  the  treatment  of  Williams  by  Massachusetts 


146  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

were  much  less  of  a  factor  in  the  Hutchinsonian  dispute, 
though  still  present ;  in  the  proscription  of  Baptists  and 
Quakers  they  were  hardly  of  weight  at  all.  Persons  of 
Baptist  principles  were  to  be  found  among  the  Puritan 
settlers  of  New  England  from  the  beginning;  but  so  long 
as  they  did  not  violently  attack  infant  baptism  or  the 
churches  practicing  it  they  were  let  alone. 

As  early  as  December  14,  1642,  three  women  of  Lynn 
and  Salem  were  before  the  quarter  court  for  their  Bap- 
tist views.  A  little  later,  February  28,  1643,  William 
Witter,  of  Lynn,  was  brought  to  answer  by  the  same  tri- 
bunal, having  "called  our  ordenonce  of  God  a  badge  of 
the  whore."  Witter  made  apology;  but  in  February, 
1646,  he  was  again  before  the  court  of  Salem  "  for  saying 
that  they  who  stayed  whiles  a  child  is  baptized  doe  wor- 
shipp  the  dyvell."  This  case,  and  one  or  two  others,  in- 
duced the  General  Court  to  take  action  in  November,  1644, 
when  a  law  was  passed  threatening  all  opponents  of  infant 
baptism  with  banishment.  For  his  Baptist  sentiments, 
Henry  Dunster,  the  first  president  of  Harvard  College, 
was  compelled  to  resign  his  post  in  1654.  But  Plymouth 
colony  was  by  no  means  as  severe  in  this  matter  as  Massa- 
chusetts ;  and  the  patience  and  persistence  of  the  Baptists 
at  last  broke  down  the  opposition  of  the  Massachusetts 
authorities  themselves.  In  1665  a  Baptist  church  was 
organized  in  Boston,  which  soon  worshiped  on  Noddle's 
Island.  The  court  intervened,  and  in  1668  sentenced 
three  of  these  dissenters  to  banishment ;  but  protests  from 
prominent  men  of  the  colony  and  from  leading  English 
Congregational  ministers  prevented  the  full  execution  ot 
this  decree;  and  by  1674  this  Baptist  church  was  trans- 
ferred to  Boston.  By  the  close  of  the  century  Cotton 
Mather  could  write  of  the  Baptists:  "We  are  willing  to 


BAPTISTS  AND    QUAKERS.  lA,"] 

acknowledge   for  our  brethren  as   many  of   them   as  are 
willing  to  be  so  acknowledged." 

This  spirit  of  persecution  manifested  itself  in  far  more 
violent  forms  against  the  Quakers  than  against  the  Bap- 
tists, in  proportion  as  their  own  conduct  was  more  exas- 
perating. The  Baptist  at  least  claimed  to  stand  with  the 
Puritan  on  the  Word  of  God.  The  Quaker  asserted  a 
divine  illumination  which  made  his  actions  and  his  testi- 
mony directly  inspired  of  God ;  and  however  necessary 
such  a  protest  as  his  may  have  been  against  the  literalism 
of  the  Puritan's  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  early  New  England  Quaker  by  conduct 
and  speech  convinced  the  Puritan  that  he  was  an  enemy 
against  decency  and  order  rather  than  a  messenger  of  the 
Lord.  Probably  the  extremer  forms  of  Quaker  demon- 
stration were  aggravated  by  the  repressive  measures  from 
which  the  Quakers  suffered ;  but  much  that  they  did 
would,  if  done  in  our  own  day,  have  brought  them  before 
the  police-court  and  into  examination  as  to  mental  sanity. 
First  arriving  in  the  colony  in  July,  1656,  they  were  im- 
prisoned and  sent  away ;  and  in  October  of  that  year  a 
law  was  passed  by  the  General  Court,  now  presided  ovei 
by  Endicott  and  Bellingham,  two  of  the  sternest  of  Mas- 
sachusetts Puritans,  as  governor  and  deputy-governor, 
ordering  that  all  Quakers  should  be  whipped,  imprisoned, 
and  transported  out  of  the  country.  Similar  laws  were 
enacted  in  Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New  Haven  colo- 
nies. Yet  Quakers  continued  to  come,  claiming  "  a  mes- 
sage from  the  Lord  "  ;  and  in  1658  the  penalty  for  return 
after  banishment  was,  by  recommendation  of  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  four  colonies,  increased  in  Massachusetts  to 
death.  The  three  other  colonies  failed  to  follow  the  advice 
of  their  commissioners,  and  the  Massachusetts  lower  House 


148  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

passed  the  statute  by  a  majority  of  only  one.  But  the 
Quakers  were  persistent.  Under  what  they  believed  to 
be  divine  impulse,  they  continued  to  return  to  Massachu- 
setts in  order  to  denounce  its  institutions  and  revile  its 
ministers  and  magistrates.  In  accordance  with  this  law, 
two  men  were  executed  at  Boston  in  1659,  one  woman 
in  1660,  and  a  man  in  1661.  But  opposition  to  these 
severities  was  strong  in  the  colony,  and  in  May,  1661,  the 
law  was  greatly  alleviated.  In  1677  the  last  instance  of 
punishment  of  Quakers  by  whipping  occurred ;  and  though 
Massachusetts  still  looked  upon  them  with  disfavor,  they, 
like  the  Baptists  and  all  other  Protestants,  received  freedom 
from  molestation  by  the  new  charter  granted  to  the  colony 
in  1 69 1. 

The  shortcomings  of  a  neighboring  people  are  slight 
excuse  indeed  for  national  failings;  but  it  is  not  without 
interest  to  observe  that  the  repressive  measures  of  the  New 
England  Puritans  were  nothing  peculiar  to  them.  In- 
deed, if  the  severity  rather  than  the  spirit  of  the  statute 
be  made  the  test,  American  Puritanism  appears  lenient  in 
comparison  with  the  mother-country,  or  with  the  other 
great  English  colonial  experiment  of  the  period,  the  Church- 
of- England  colony  of  Virginia.  Under  what  has  recent!}- 
been  described  as  the  "  wholesome  discipline "  of  Sir 
Thomas  Dale,  high  marshal  of  that  colony  from  161 1  to 
16 1 6,  a  code  of  laws  of  military  strictness  was  estab- 
lished. By  these  statutes  continued  absence  from  daily 
ser\-ices  was  punishable  with  six  months  in  the  galleys, 
and  similar  neglect  of  Sunday  worship  with  death.  This 
harsh  rule  was  probably  never  fully  enforced,  and  it 
was  modified  when  the  colonial  assembly  of  Virginia 
began  its  existence  in  16 19;  but  the  worship  of  tht 
Church  of  England  still  remained  the  exclusive  leg^'il 
form,  and  attendance  on  its  services  "  both  forenoon  and 


PURITANISM  NOT  ALONE   SEVERE.  1 49 

afternoon  "  was  enjoined  on  "  all  persons  whatsoever," 
under  a  fine  established  by  statute  in  1623,  as  a  hogshead 
of  tobacco  for  a  single  willful  absence,  and  of  ^50  for  a 
month's  neglect.  Yet,  in  spite  of  this  enforced  uniformity, 
an  appeal  came  from  some  of  the  people  of  Virginia  to 
Boston  in  1642  asking  for  Congregational  missionaries. 
New  England  heard  the  request,  and  in  response  Rev. 
Messrs.  William  Tompson  of  Braintree,  John  Knowles  of 
Watertown,  and  Thomas  James  of  New  Haven  went 
thither  with  the  commendation  of  their  ministerial  asso- 
ciates. Yet,  though  they  had  some  slight  success,  their 
mission  was  a  failure,  owing  to  the  opposition  of  the  gov- 
ernment, which  drove  out  the  ministers,  and,  though  the 
dissenters  numbered  a  hundred  and  eighteen,  "  made  an 
order  that  all  such  as  would  not  conform  to  the  discipline 
of  the  Church  of  England  should  depart  the  country  by  a 
certain  day."  So  effective  were  the  drastic  measures  of 
the  Virginia  assembly  that  Governor  Spotswood  was  able 
to  write  in  1710,  two  generations  after  this  expulsion :  "  It 
is  a  peculiar  blessing  to  this  Country  to  have  but  few 
of  any  kind  of  Dissenters."  Certainly  the  New  England 
Puritan  was  not  more  bigoted  than  the  Virginia  Episco- 
palian. 

But  it  should  not  be  forgotten,  in  any  estimate  of  Puri- 
tan New  England,  that  it  had  in  itself  a  principle  that  ulti- 
mately worked  the  cure  of  its  limitation  of  religious  free- 
dom. It  believed  profoundly  in  the  authoritative  character 
of  the  Word  of  God ;  but  in  the  interpretation  of  that 
Word,  as  John  Fiske  has  pointed  out,  it  employed  no  aid 
save  reason,  enlightened  by  whatever  of  learning  men 
could  attain.  In  this  regard  it  was  beyond  all  other  Chris- 
tian countries  of  the  age  rationalist.  It  appealed  to  no 
standards  of  interpretation  fixed  in  bygone  centuries,  or 
by  authoritative  councils.      It  claimed  no  insight  into  the 


150  THE    CONGREGATIONALISrS.  [Chap.  V, 

Scriptures  for  its  ministers  beyond  what  any  layman  might 
and  ought  to  reach  by  a  similar  degree  of  education  and 
study.  It  laid  down  no  dictum  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
Bible  which  it  did  not  believe  to  be  grounded  on  the  same 
bases  of  rational  argument  that  it  applied  to  the  concerns 
of  law  or  business.  Its  ministers  were  no  priestly  order 
demanding  reverence  as  the  exclusive  expounders  of 
divine  oracles,  or  claiming  any  inherent  right  to  direct  the 
affairs  of  state.  Their  influence,  great  as  it  was,  had  no 
other  basis  than  that  of  special  knowledge  obtained  through 
ordinary  processes  of  learning  addressed  to  themes  which 
the  community  deemed  of  first  importance.  It  was 
largely  because  Mrs.  Hutchinson  and  the  Quakers  claimed 
other  sources  of  authority,  substituting  for  study  of  the 
Bible  and  logical  deductions  from  its  teachings  what  they 
affirmed  to  be  divine  revelations,  that  they  seemxcd  so  ob- 
noxious to  the  New  England  Puritans.  Such  a  system  of 
scholarly  investigation  implies,  however  dimly  the  implica- 
tion may  be  apprehended,  the  possibility  of  revision,  which 
no  dogmatic  or  confessional  system  allows  without  revolu- 
tion. And  though  the  Congregationalists  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  adopted  elaborate  statements  of  faith  as 
expressions  of  the  beliefs  of  the  body  of  New  England 
churches,  by  allowing  each  church  freedom  of  creed-forma- 
tion and  autonomy  in  government  within  the  general  limits 
of  fellowship  they  unintentionally  made  the  way  easy  for 
local  modification  and  adaptation  to  advancing  discussion. 
Nor  did  the  ministry  of  early  New  England  manifest 
any  jealousy  oV  laymen  either  in  theologic  discussion  or 
in  church  administration.  There  were  no  fountains  of 
divine  knowledge  not  open  to  the  ordinary  church-mem- 
ber. By  the  votes  of  laymen  the  minister  received  the 
"  call  "  which  gave  him  all  the  ministerial  title  he  possessed ; 
and  thoueh  when  in  office  a  minister  had  a  more  authori- 


INVESTIGA  TION  AND   EDUCA  TION.  I  5  I 

tative  position  than  he  enjoys  in  modern  democratic  Con- 
gregationalism, the  doctrine,  discipline,  and  increase  of 
any  particular  church  rested  ultimately  on  the  decision  of 
its  non-clerical  membership.  In  all  synods  and  councils 
the  lay  element  was  present,  and  usually  during  the  seven- 
teenth century  in  larger  numbers  than  the  ministers.  It 
was  this  working  together  of  the  religious  community  as 
a  whole  which  renders  the  repressive  acts  of  which  account 
has  been  given  the  work  of  no  one  class,  and  which  made 
it  certain  that  as  soon  as  public  sentiment  in  general  was 
ready  for  toleration  repression  would  cease. 

One  other  feature  of  the  Congregational  life  of  the 
seventeenth  century  shows  that  in  spite  of  whatever 
narrowness  it  may  have  exhibited  it  was  in  a  healthful 
state,  and  had  in  it  seeds  of  future  freedom.  New  Eng- 
land Congregationalism  believed  that  education  was  one 
of  the  chief  safeguards  of  the  Christian  life.  Such  a  con- 
ception was  the  natural  outcome  of  the  importance  it  at- 
tached to  the  Bible,  and  especially  of  the  method  by  which 
the  truths  contained  therein  were  thought  to  be  discover- 
able. The  Puritan  had  no  sympathy  with  the  doctrine 
that  ignorance  is  the  mother  of  faith ;  to  his  thinking, 
education  is  the  road  to  knowledge  in  divine  things.  The 
New  Englanders  of  the  seventeenth  century,  judged  by 
modern  standards,  were  not  a  reading  people ;  but  com- 
pared with  the  common  people  of  the  land  from  which 
they  had  come  forth,  they  were  educated ;  and  their  min- 
istry was  from  the  first  a  conspicuously  learned  body  of 
men.  Moved  by  the  desire  to  train  up  successors  worthy 
of  the  graduates  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford  who  occupied 
New  England  pulpits,  the  Massachusetts  General  Court, 
on  October  28,  1636,  voted  ^400  for  a  "  colledge."  The 
same  court  that  exiled  Mrs.  Hutchinson  in  November, 
1637,  ordered  that  it  should  be  at  Newtown,  soon  after 


152  THE    CONGREGAl^IONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

named  Cambridge,  doubtless  in  honor  of  the  English  ahna 
mater  of  nearly  fifty  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies ; 
and  to  this  college  the  name  of  Harvard  was  given  in 
March,  1639,  in  honor  of  its  principal  benefactor.  The  first 
commencement  at  this  seat  of  learning  was  held  in  1642, 
and  from  that  time  till  the  founding  of  Yale  College,  in 
1 701,  it  was  almost  the  sole  source  from  which  the  New 
England  ministry  was  replenished. 

Lower  education  also  soon  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
colonial  governments.  Boston  had  a  school  by  1635  ;  in 
Hartford  one  was  in  existence  by  1637,  and  by  1643  the 
town  voted  to  pay  the  tuition  of  any  whose  parents  were 
"not  able  to  pay  for  their  teaching"  ;  New  Haven  estab- 
lished a  school  in  1642.  The  example  thus  set  was  en- 
forced by  the  colonial  legislatures.  In  November,  1647, 
Massachusetts  thus  ordered :  "  yt  ev'"y  towneship  in  this 
iurisdiction,  aff  y^  Lord  hath  increased  y"^  to  y^  number 
of  50  houshold''s,  shall  then  forth w^h  appoint  one  wt'nn 
their  town  to  teach  all  such  children  as  shall  resort  to  him 
to  write  &  reade  ;...&...  yt  where  any  towne  shall 
increase  to  ye  numbi"  of  100  families  or  househouldi's,  they 
shall  set  up  a  gramer  schoole,  y^  m^  thereof  being  able  to 
instruct  youth  so  farr  as  they  may  be  fited  for  y^  university." 

This  Massachusetts  statute  was  copied  verbally  in  the 
code  of  laws  enacted  by  the  Connecticut  Court  in  May, 
1650.  And  the  reason  given  in  both  cases  is  that  men 
might  have  a  better  understanding  of  the  Word  of  God : 
"it  being,"  as  the  court  expressed  it,  "one  cheife  proiect 
of  yt  ould  deluder,  Satan,  to  keepe  men  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  ye  Scriptures." 

Certainly  a  community  in  which  the  autonomy  of  the 
local  church  was  preserved ;  in  which  separate  colonial 
jurisdictions  grew  out  of  and  perpetuated  somewhat  diver- 
gent theories  as  to  the  extent  of  the  theocratic  principle 


THEIR   EFFECT.  153 

in  the  administration  of  the  state ;  in  which  laymen  were 
concerned  in  the  definition  of  doctrine  and  the  management 
of  ecclesiastical  affairs  to  a  degree  nowhere  else  exempli- 
fied ;  and  in  which  the  interpretation  of  the  fundamental 
religious  rule,  the  Scriptures,  was  based  solely  on  studious 
investigation  and  argument — was  a  community  having  in 
its  constitution  principles  which  must  lead  to  religious 
freedom,  in  which  repression  could  be  only  a  passing  phase 
of  development,  and  which  was  certain  to  produce  strong, 
intelligent,  intellectually  acute.  Christian  men  and  women. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  spite  of  the  repression  of  the  ex- 
tremer  forms  of  dissent  from  what  was  practically  an  estab- 
lished church,  discussion  of  polity — and,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  of  doctrine — was  a  necessary  characteristic  of  early 
New  England  life,  and  from  these  debates  continued  prog- 
ress in  the  development  of  the  principle  of  fellowship  re- 
sulted. The  form  which  these  discussions  took  was  largely 
determined  by  the  changing  state  of  public  affairs  in  Eng- 
land— a  change  which  led,  in  1640,  to  the  summons  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  and  in  1642  to  war  between  Parlia- 
ment and  the  king  and  the  dominance  in  parliamentary 
counsels  of  Presbyterian  Puritanism.  To  some  extent, 
also,  debates  as  to  the  extent  of  church-membership  and 
consequent  right  to  baptism,  which  were  to  turmoil  the 
New  England  churches  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  decades 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  made  their  beginnings  felt  soon 
after  the  Hutchinsonian  dispute. 

Naturally  the  rapid  development  of  Congregationalism 
in  New  England  excited  the  curiosity,  and  to  some  extent 
the  concern,  of  the  Puritan  party  in  the  mother-country. 
Through  the  influence  of  Cartwright  and  other  of  its  early 
leaders  the  nonconformity  of  that  party  inclined  toward 
Presbyterianism.  To  many  of  its  leaders  the  Congrega- 
tionalism of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  seemed  a  fall- 


154  '^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

ing  away  under  Plymouth  example  into  dangerous  Sepa- 
ratism. Accordingly,  as  early  as  1636  or  1637  the  English 
Puritans  sent  across  the  ocean  two  sets  of  queries  as  to  the 
constitution  of  a  church ;  membership  ;  forms  of  worship  ; 
the  use  of  a  liturgy ;  ministerial  election,  ordination,  and 
standing ;  councils ;  and,  in  fact,  the  whole  range  of  eccle- 
siastical life.  The  shorter  of  these  inquiries,  entitled  "  A 
Letter  of  Many  Ministers  in  Old  England,  requesting  The 
judgement  of  their  Reverend  Brethren  in  New  England 
concerning  Nine  Positions,"  was  replied  to  by  Rev.  John 
Davenport,  of  New  Haven,  under  the  caption  of  "  An 
Answer  of  the  Elders  of  the  Severall  Chvrches  in  New- 
England  unto  Nine  Positions,"  and  both  the  query  and 
the  reply  were  printed  at  London  in  1643,  after  they  had 
circulated  several  years  in  manuscript.  The  longer  series 
of  questions,  thirty-two  in  number,  were  replied  to  in  1639 
by  Rev.  Richard  Mather,  of  Dorchester,  but  his  tractate, 
like  that  of  Davenport,  did  not  appear  in  print  till  1643, 
and  bears  the  title  of  "  Church- Government  and  Church- 
Covenant  Discvssed,  In  an  Answer  of  the  Elders  of  the 
severall  Churches  in  New-England  To  two  and  thirty 
Questions."  These  elaborate  expositions  of  the  various 
aspects  of  New  England  Congregationalism  evoked  plen- 
tiful reply,  and  were  soon  followed  by  others.  Thus,  not 
long  after  Mather's  tract  was  composed.  Rev.  John  Cotton, 
of  Boston,  wrote  a  manuscript  defense  of  New  England 
methods,  which  reached  England  in  an  imperfect  or  undi- 
gested copy,  and  after  circulating  in  manuscript  for  several 
years  was  printed  in  1645  as  the  "Way  of  the  Churches 
of  Christ  in  New-England."  Even  more  important  as 
one  of  the  formative  expositions  of  American  Congrega- 
tionalism was  Cotton's  "  Keyes  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven," 
published  at  London  in  1644.  These  works  led  to  many 
opposing  treatises,  especially  after  the  call  of  the  West- 


CONGREGATIONAL    TREATISES.  155 

minster  Assembly  and  the  adoption  of  the  Covenant  by 
ParHament  in  1643  made  Presbyterianism  dominant  in 
England.  Perhaps  the  most  weighty  of  these  replies,  in 
the  estimate  of  the  founders  of  New  England,  was  the 
"  Due  right  of  Presbyteries,"  published  by  Professor 
Samuel  Rutherford,  of  the  University  of  St.  Andrew's,  in 
1644.  To  this  work  Mather  rejoined  in  1647  by  his 
"Reply  to  Mr.  Rutherfurd,"  and  Cotton  in  1648  by  his 
"Way  of  the  Congregational  Churches  Cleared";  but 
the  most  important  answer  was  that  of  Rev.  Thomas 
Hooker,  of  Hartford,  in  his  "  Survey  of  the  Summe  of 
Church-Discipline,"  the  original  manuscript  of  which  was 
sent  from  New  Haven  by  the  celebrated  "  phantom  ship  " 
in  January,  1646.  Its  destruction  in  the  mysterious  loss 
of  the  vessel  to  which  it  was  intrusted  led  to  its  ultimate 
publication,  in  1648,  from  an  exceedingly  imperfect  man- 
uscript, after  the  death  of  the  writer;  yet  fragmentary  as 
it  is.  Hooker's  "Survey"  ranks  with  Cotton's  "  Keyes  " 
as  one  of  the  chief  settings  forth  of  early  New  England 
Congregationalism. 

This  formulation  of  the  Congregational  system  in  elabo- 
rate treatises,  only  the  more  important  of  which  have  been 
aamed,  was  chiefly  the  result  of  inquiry  and  criticism  from 
beyond  the  sea;  but  even  more  positive  consequences  in 
the  way  of  definition  flowed  from  home  debates.  Not  all 
of  the  founders  thought  alike  upon  polity.  At  Newbury, 
Mass.,  the  pastor  and  teacher,  Thomas  Parker  and  James 
Noyes,  were  so  far  inclined  toward  Presbyterianism  that 
they  did  away  with  the  participation  of  the  ordinary  mem- 
bership in  church  acts  save  in  ministerial  election.  At 
Hingham,  Rev.  Peter  Hobart  was  of  the  same  opinion. 
But  to  the  majority  of  the  ministry  of  New  England  this 
denial  to  the  brethren  of  a  share  in  admissions,  dismissions, 
and  discipline  seemed  a  serious  error;  and  therefore  a  con- 


156  THE   CCkWGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

vention  of  the  ministers  of  the  Congregational  colonies  was 
held  at  Cambridge  in  September,  1643,  with  Cotton  and 
Hooker  for  its  moderators.  It  was  not  a  synod,  like  the 
council  of  1637,  though  that  name  has  sometimes  loosely- 
been  given  to  it,  for  it  had  in  it  no  delegates  from  the  lay 
membership  of  the  churches.  By  this  assembly  the  New- 
bury ministers  were  labored  with,  though  not  convinced ; 
and  it  shows  the  advance  toward  consolidation  that  the 
few  years  of  establishment  on  American  soil  had  effected, 
that  the  suggestion  vainly  proposed  by  Winthrop  in  the 
Synod  of  1637  was  approved  with  added  emphasis  by  the 
convention,  which  agreed,  "  that  Consociation  of  churches, 
in  way  of  more  general  meetings,  yearly ;  and  more  pri- 
vately, monthly,  or  quarterly  ;  as  Consultative  Synods  ;  are 
very  comfortable,  and  necessary  for  the  peace  and  good  of 
the  churches."  It  is  hardly  needful  to  point  out  that  the 
word  "  consociation  "  was  not  used  by  the  first  two  gen- 
erations on  New  England  soil  in  the  technical  sense  later 
attached  to  it  in  Connecticut ;  what  the  convention  had  in 
view  more  nearly  resembles  the  modern  Congregational 
"  conference." 

It  was  natural  that  the  unhealed  difference  between  the 
ministers  at  Newbury  and  Hingham,  the  manifestation  of 
Baptist  sentiments  here  and  there  among  the  membership 
of  the  churches,  and  above  all  the  growing  prominence  of 
the  questions  as  to  the  extent  of  church- membership  and 
the  right  to  baptism  out  of  which  the  Half- Way  Cove- 
nant discussion  was  to  grow,  should  incline  men  who  had 
just  expressed  their  approval  of  frequent  meetings  of  the 
churches  to  desire  a  new  general  council  to  determine  the 
questions  at  issue,  and  to  give  to  the  churches  the  "  one 
vniforme  order  of  dissipline,"  the  propriety  of  which  had 
been  urged  by  the  Massachusetts  General  Court  as  early 
as  March,  1635.     But  other  causes  impelled  toward  the 


VASSALL  AND    CHILD.  157 

formulation  of  Congregational  order.  Parliament  was  at 
war  with  the  king,  and  in  that  struggle  had  the  hearty 
sympathy  of  the  New  England  colonies.  But  Parliament 
and  its  Scotch  supporters  were  violently  Presbyterian. 
The  Westminster  Assembly  had  been  engaged  since  July, 
1643,  ii^  preparing  a  Presbyterian  Confession  and  ecclesi- 
astical constitution  for  England.  Moreover,  Parliament, 
in  November,  1643,  had  established  a  board  entitled  "  The 
Commissioners  for  Plantations,"  with  power  "  to  provide 
for,  order,  and  dispose  all  things  "  for  the  colonies,  and 
in  fact  exercise  all  the  authority  formerly  possessed  over 
them  by  the  king.  It  seemed  no  idle  fear  that  when  the 
Westminster  Assembly  had  done  its  work  Parliament  would 
force  the  acceptance  of  its  results  on  New  England,  as  it 
seemed  likely  to  do  on  other  parts  of  the  realm.  This 
fear  was  strengthened  by  a  formidable  movement  in  1645 
and  1646,  led  by  William  Vassall,  of  Plymouth  colony,  and 
Dr.  Robert  Child  and  a  number  of  associates  in  the  Mas- 
sachusetts jurisdiction.  These  men,  dissatisfied  with  the 
limitation  of  the  suffrage  to  church-members  in  Massachu- 
setts, and  with  the  strenuous  barriers  which  Congregation- 
alism everywhere  placed  between  the  sacraments  and 
all  who  could  not  unite  in  church  covenant  on  the  basis 
of  personal  religious  experience,  petitioned  the  courts  of 
Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  for  the  privileges  which  they 
would  have  had  in  church  and  state  in  England,  and 
threatened  that  if  their  desires  were  not  granted  they 
would  appeal  to  Parliament  for  redress.  Certainly  they 
had  much  reason  to  feel  that  their  complaint  was  just ;  yet 
had  the  courts  granted  their  requests,  the  fabric  of  New 
England  institutions  would  have  been  profoundly  altered. 
And  had  they  not  been  frustrated  in  their  attempt  to 
secure  parliamentary  interference  by  the  great  political 
reversal  which  in    1647   iriade   Cromwell   and   the   army, 


158  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

rather  than  ParHament,  masters  of  England,  New  England 
institutions  would  probably  have  been  forcibly  changed 
by  a  parliamentary  power  no  less  arbitrary  than  that  of 
King  Charles  himself. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  of  internal  discussion 
and  dreaded  interference  from  without  that  some  of  the 
Massachusetts  ministers  obtained  from  the  General  Court 
of  that  colony,  in  spite  of  considerable  hesitation  on  the 
part  of  the  representatives  of  the  towns  in  the  lower  House, 
the  summons  of  a  synod  by  a  call  dated  May  15,  1646. 
By  this  legislative  invitation  the  churches  of  Massachu- 
setts, Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New  Haven  were  asked 
to  send  their  ministers  and  delegates  to  meet  at  Cambridge 
on  the  1st  of  September  following,  "  there  to  discusse, 
dispute,  &  cleare  up,  by  the  word  of  God,  such  questions 
of  church  govemmt^  &  discipline  ...  as  they  shall  thinke 
needfull  &  meete." 

The  particular  questions  which  seemed  to  the  court  to 
be  the  most  pressing  were  "  those  about  baptisme,  &  ye 
p'sons  to  be  received  thereto  "  ;  but  the  invitation  doubt- 
less was  intended  to  allow  freedom  to  formulate  the  whole 
round  of  ecclesiastical  practice. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  call  of  the  court,  four  Massachu- 
setts churches  were  unrepresented  when  the  ist  of  Sep- 
tember came.  Hingham  was  doubtless  disinclined,  owing 
to  a  recent  quarrel  with  the  colonial  authorities ;  at  Con- 
cord the  minister  was  unable  to  go,  and  no  brother  of  the 
church  was  deemed  gifted  enough  to  be  its  delegate ;  but 
at  Boston  and  Salem  considerable  portions  of  the  congre- 
gation had  doubts  as  to  the  wisdom  of  synods  by  legisla- 
tive authority.  These  scruples  were  overcome  after  much 
argument ;  but  this  discussion  consumed  a  number  of 
days,  and  the  attendance  from  other  colonies  than  Mas- 
sachusetts   was    small,    and    therefore,    having  appointed 


THE    CAMBRIDGE   SYNOD.  1 59 

Rev.  Messrs.  John  Cotton  of  Boston,  Richard  Mather  of 
Dorchester,  and  Ralph  Partridge  of  Duxbury  each  to 
draught  a  "  model  of  church  government,"  the  Synod 
adjourned  to  June  8,  1647.  At  that  time  it  reassembled, 
but  an  epidemic  caused  its  speedy  adjournment  for  the 
second  time. 

Soon  after  its  second  recess  the  court  laid  a  new  task 
upon  the  Synod.  The  Westminster  Assembly  was  well 
known  to  have  prepared  a  Confession  of  Faith,  which, 
though  presented  to  Parliament  in  December,  1646,  was 
not  approved  by  that  body  till  after  much  revision,  in  June, 
1648.  Till  adopted  by  the  Scotch  General  Assembly  on 
August  27,  1647,  it  had  been  held  secret;  and  its  exact 
nature  was  in  all  probability  unknown  in  New  England 
when  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  met  in  October 
of  that  year.  It  doubtless  seemed  to  many  in  New  Eng- 
land that  it  would  be  well  for  the  Synod  to  be  ready  with 
a  confession  of  its  own  should  that  of  Westminster  prove 
unsatisfactory,  and  therefore  the  court  requested  seven 
of  the  Massachusetts  ministers  each  to  prepare  "  a  breife 
forme  of  this  nature,  &  p'sent  ye  same  to  ye  next  session 
of  ye  synode." 

Meanwhile  affairs  in  England  were  rapidly  assuming  an 
aspect  satisfactory  to  the  New  England  Congregationalists. 
Child  and  his  friends  had  gone  thither  to  prosecute  their 
complaints,  and  the  Massachusetts  authorities  had  sent 
Gov.  Edward  Winslow  of  Plymouth  thither,  in  December, 
1646,  as  its  agent  to  prevent  the  English  governmental 
interference  which  Child  proposed  to  invoke.  In  this 
mission  Winslow  was  entirely  successful,  not  so  much  on 
account  of  his  own  labors,  though  he  was  skillful  and 
energetic  in  high  degree,  as  by  reason  of  the  downfall  of 
the  Presbyterian  ascendency  owing  to  the  rise  of  the  army 
to  political   supremacy   in    1647   and    1648.      When   the 


l6o  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

Synod  met,  therefore,  for  its  final  session  on  August  15, 
1648,  rhe  political  horizon  seemed  brighter  than  at  any- 
time in  its  history.  Two  draughts  certainly  of  the  three 
models  of  church  government  requested  by  the  Synod 
were  presented ;  and  that  of  Rev.  Richard  Mather  was 
preferred  to  that  of  Rev.  Ralph  Partridge,  though  much 
abridged  and  somewhat  modified  by  the  assembly.  In 
particular,  the  extension  of  baptism  to  the  children  of  those 
who,  though  themselves  baptized  offspring  of  parents  in 
church- covenant,  were  not  persons  of  Christian  experience 
— the  system  later  known  as  the  Half- Way  Covenant — 
though  given  a  place  by  Mather  and  Partridge  in  their 
draughts,  and  though  prominently  in  the  thought  of  the 
court  as  a  question  to  be  determined  by  the  Synod,  was 
left  undecided,  after  considerable  debate,  owing  to  the 
strenuous  opposition  of  a  few  to  the  innovation.  The 
defeat  of  Child  and  his  friends  made  it  seem  a  less  press- 
ing question  than  at  the  call  of  the  Synod.  Thus  revised, 
Mather's  draught  became  the  celebrated  "  Cambridge 
Platform."  At  the  same  time  the  Synod  fulfilled  the 
further  request  of  the  court,  that  a  confession  of  faith 
should  be  adopted,  by  approving  "  for  the  substance 
therof  "  the  doctrinal  parts  of  the  Westminster  Confession, 
which  had  now  reached  New  England.  With  these  acts 
the  most  important  of  early  Congregational  councils  came 
to  an  end. 

The  "  Platform,"  provided  with  a  preface  by  Rev.  John 
Cotton  elucidating  certain  features  of  Congregational  pol- 
ity and  defending  the  orthodoxy  of  the  New  England 
churches,  was  printed  at  Cambridge  in  1649,  ^'^cl  pre- 
sented to  the  ]\Iassachusetts  court  at  its  October  session 
in  that  year.  By  that  legislative  body  it  was  commended 
to  the  churches  for  their  consideration  and  report — a  re- 
quest which  was  repeated  as  an  order  in  June,  1650,  when 


THE  ''CAMBRIDGE   PLATFORM:'  l6l 

the  churches  were  also  desired  to  express  their  opinion  on 
the  Westminster  Confession.  The  churches  seem  gener- 
ally to  have  approved,  though  a  considerable  number  of 
criticisms  regarding  the  "  Platform  "  were  offered,  which 
were  answered  by  the  ministers,  at  the  request  of  the 
court,  through  the  pen  of  Rev.  Richard  Mather.  And 
at  last,  in  October,  165  i,  the  court  expressed  its  guarded 
approval  of  the  result,  voting  that  its  members  "  account 
themselues  called  of  God  (especially  at  this  time,  when 
the  truth  of  Christ  is  so  much  opposed  in  the  world)  to 
giue  theire  testimony  to  the  s'd  Booke  of  Discipline,  that 
for  the  substance  thereof  it  is  that  we  haue  practised  & 
doe  beleeue."  Yet  from  this  very  cautious  commendation 
fourteen  of  the  town  representatives  in  the  lower  House 
dissented,  including  the  entire  delegations  from  Boston 
and  Salem,  showing  thus  that  the  distrust  which  had  there 
led  to  a  tardy  recognition  of  the  Synod  had  not  died  out. 
But  no  serious  opposition  to  the  "  Platform  "  developed 
among  the  churches,  and  the  "  Platform  "  continued  the 
recognized  standard  of  Congregationalism  in  Massachu- 
setts throughout  the  colonial  period,  and  in  Connecticut 
till  the  Saybrook  Synod  in  i  708. 

The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  approved  at 
Cambridge  as  an  adequate  expression  of  Congregational 
belief,  was  superseded  in  Massachusetts  in  1680,  and  in 
Connecticut  in  1 708,  by  a  slight  modification  of  its  Savoy 
revision  of  1658.  But  early  Congregationalism  in  Amer- 
ica stood  uncriticisingly  on  the  doctrinal  basis  of  the  great 
Puritan  party  in  the  home  land,  and  there  is  no  evidence 
that  the  adoption  of  the  Westminster  Confession  aroused 
anything  like  the  interest  excited  by  the  "  Platform." 
One  point,  indeed,  that  of  "  vocation,"  raised  a  little  de- 
bate in  the  Synod ;  but  neither  that  body  nor  the  churches 
seem  to  have  felt  in  any  critical  spirit  toward  the  Confes- 


1 62  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  v. 

sion,  which  Parliament  had  just  made  the  doctrinal  stand- 
ard of  England. 

The  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  is  an  ecclesiastical  constitu- 
tion in  seventeen  chapters,  built  upon  the  proposition  that 
"  the  partes  of  Church- Government  are  all  of  them  exactly 
described  in  the  word  of  God."  It  attempts  to  ascertain 
the  Scripture  pattern  of  the  church ;  the  character  and 
conditions  of  its  membership  ;  its  powers  ;  its  officers,  their 
appointment  and  duties ;  its  discipline ;  its  expression  of 
fellowship  with  other  churches ;  the  right  of  councils  to 
advise  in  its  affairs ;  and  the  authority  of  the  magistrate  in 
ecclesiastical  concerns.  The  "  Platform  "  represents  Con- 
gregationalism as  the  New  England  fathers  pictured  it 
after  half  a  generation  of  experience  in  its  practical  ad- 
ministration. To  the  thinking  of  the  Synod,  Congrega- 
tionalism was  vastly  less  democratic  than  jnodern  Con- 
gregational practice  conceives  the  system  to  be.  It  was 
viewed  as  of  exclusive  divine  authority,  and  as  subject  to 
the  interference  of  the  civil  ruler  should  its  churches  swerve 
in  doctrine  or  administration  from  the  God-given  standard. 
But  though  the  "  Platform  "  in  these  and  other  particulars 
reflects  the  temporary  rather  than  the  permanent  char- 
acteristics of  the  system,  it  pictures  with  great  clearness 
the  abiding  principles  of  Congregationalism.  The  cov- 
enant as  the  basis  of  the  local  church,  the  autonomy  of 
each  congregation,  coupled  with  its  dependence  on  other 
churches  for  fellowship  and  counsel,  the  representative 
character  of  the  ministry,  above  all  the  absence  of  all 
final  authority  in  doctrine  or  polity  save  the  Word  of  God, 
are  the  essential  features  of  the  "  Platform  "  which  ha\e 
given  it  permanent  worth  and  have  partially  justified  the 
veneration  with  which  this  monument  of  early  New  Eng- 
land Congregationalism  has  been  regarded. 

The  preparation  of  the  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  and  the 


THE    ''CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM:''  1 63 

adoption  of  the  Westminster  Confession  as  general  ex- 
pressions of  Congregational  faith  and  practice  by  a  body 
representative  of  the  New  England  churches  as  a  whole 
marks  the  completion  of  that  movement  toward  confeder- 
ation which  characterized  early  American  Congregation- 
alism from  the  arrival  of  the  Puritans,  which  was  greatly 
strengthened  by  the  establishment  of  Congregationalism 
as  a  state  church,  and  had  its  strongest  impulse  from  the 
efforts  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  forces  of  the  new  set- 
tlements to  guard  their  institutions  and  their  faith  from 
what  they  deemed  dangerous  encroachments.  Congrega- 
tionalism was  thus  placed  almost  from  the  first  in  New 
England  in  a  totally  different  position  from  what  it  has 
ever  occupied  in  England — in  the  home  land  it  has  always 
been  a  somewhat  radical  element  protesting  against  an 
established  system ;  in  New  England  it  necessarily  became 
conservative,  since  it  was  the  legally  recognized  polity, 
and  such  a  position  is  one  requiring  definition  and  leading 
to  united  action.  No  general  council  of  all  Congregational 
churches  in  America  met  again  till  the  Albany  Convention 
of  1852  ;  but  the  impulse  toward  fellowship  which  marked 
these  early  years  developed  principles  recognized  from  the 
first  in  the  system,  but  which  had  not  come  into  practice 
to  any  considerable  extent  in  England  or  Holland,  and  so 
developed  them  that  they  gave  a  fraternal  character  to  the 
relationship  of  churches  one  to  another  and  a  corporate 
consciousness  to  the  Congregational  body  which  survived 
the  strongly  decentralizing  tendencies  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  is  increasingly  valued  in  our  own  day. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

CONGREGATIONALISM    FROM    165O   TO    1 725. 

It  was  one  of  the  pleasant  incidents  of  the  second  ses- 
sion of  the  Cambridge  Synod  in  June,  1647,  that,  as  Win- 
throp  tell  us,  "  Mr.  Eliot  preached  to  the  Indians  in  their 
own  language  before  all  the  assembly."  The  rnissionary 
enterprise  thus  publicly  exhibited  had  not  long  before  been 
inaugurated.  To  bring  the  savage  inhabitants  of  America 
to  Christianity  had,  indeed,  been  one  of  the  objects  which 
attracted  the  Leyden  Pilgrims  across  the  ocean ;  and  the 
Massachusetts  Company  had  declared,  in  1629,  that  "the 
propagating  of  the  gosple  is  the  thing  [wee]  doe  professe 
aboue  all  to  bee  o^"  ayme  "  ; — a  propagation  which  included 
the  evangelization  of  the  Indians,  as  well  as  the  establish- 
ment of  English  religious  institutions  in  New  England. 
But  though  various  efforts  were  made  in  the  early  days  of 
the  colonies  to  carry  this  purpose  into  execution,  no  sys- 
tematic plan  was  at  first  pursued,  and  scanty  results  were 
accomplished.  The  barriers  of  language  and  especially  of 
thought  and  manner  of  life  made  easy  communication  be- 
tween the  two  races  difficult.  It  is  to  be  remembered  to 
the  credit  of  Roger  Williams  that  while  at  Plymouth,  prob- 
ably as  early  as  1632,  he  began  the  study  of  the  Indian 
tongues  and  cultivated  that  familiarity  with  Indian  life 
which  made  his  words  influential  with  the  savage  warriors. 

But  the  most  important  movement  for  Indian  conversion 
was  initiated  by  the  Massachusetts  court, — the  body  which 
was  responsible  for  so  much  that  was  good  and  evil  alike 

164 


INDIAN  MISSIONS.  1 65 

in  early  New  England  religious  life,  and  which  served  in 
so  many  ways  as  a  General  Assembly  regulative  of  the 
churches.  In  November,  1644,  the  court  expressed  its 
desire  that  the  Indians  should  receive  religious  instruction, 
and  soon  invited  the  ministers  to  express  their  opinions  as 
to  the  most  fitting  methods.  And  two  years  later,  No- 
vember 4,  1646,  the  same  legislative  body  ordered  the  min- 
isters to  choose  two  of  their  number  at  the  annual  election 
every  year  to  engage  in  missionary  work  with  the  aid  of 
such  volunteers  as  might  join  them.  Probably  the  latter 
action  of  the  court  was  hastened  by  the  knowledge  of  mis- 
sionary labors  which  had  been  begun  a  week  before  its 
enactment.  Rev.  John  Eliot,  the  teacher  of  the  Roxbury 
church,  had  been  for  some  time  studying  the  Indian  dia- 
lect, with  the  aid  of  a  young  native  who  had  learned  Eng- 
lish as  a  servant;  and  on  October  28,  1646,  Eliot  and  three 
friends  went  to  an  Indian  village  near  Watertown,  and 
there  the  Indian  apostle  preached  his  first  sermon.  The 
movement  excited  the  general  interest  of  the  churches,  and 
such  assistance  as  could  be  given  was  cheerfully  rendered. 
These  direct  efforts  for  the  conversion  of  the  savages  were 
accompanied  by  attempts  to  give  them  the  rudiments  of 
education  and  to  bring  them  to  English  modes  of  life,  in 
which  Eliot  had  the  support  of  the  court  and  the  colonial 
treasury. 

Contemporary  with  these  missionary  exertions  of  Eliot, 
or  possibly  a  little  earlier  in  their  beginning,  were  the  inde- 
pendent labors  of  the  Mayhews  on  the  island  of  Martha's 
Vineyard,  where  the  father  and  son  established  themselves 
as  proprietors  by  purchase,  the  former  in  1644  and  the 
latter  even  earlier.  Tidings  of  these  events,  published  by 
friends  of  New  England,  aroused  great  interest  in  the 
mother-country,  and  led,  in  July,  1649,  to  the  formation 
of  a  corporation  by  act  of  Parliament  under  the  title  of 


1 66  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

"  The  President  and  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospell  in  New  England,"  designed  to  raise  money  by  a 
"  general  collection  "  in  England  for  the  furtherance  of  the 
work.  The  dispensing  agents  of  this  society  in  New  Eng- 
land were  the  commissioners  of  the  four  united  colonic:; 
of  Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New  Haven. 
Nor  were  the  sums  given  in  charity  in  England  under  the 
Commonwealth  inconsiderable:  amounting  by  1656  to  a 
total  of  ^1700,  and  reaching  by  1661  to  more  than  iJ"6oo 
a  year.  To  these  gifts  the  inhabitants  of  New  England 
added  what  they  could,  giving,  a  contemporary  observer 
declared,  "  far  more,  in  proportion,  than  their  countrymen 
in  England."  Under  the  instructions  of  Eliot,  the  May- 
hews,  and  others,  the  work  soon  showed  results.  In  1650 
Eliot  organized  his  converts  into  a  community  at  Natick, 
where  they  might  not  only  worship,  but  learn  trades  and 
husbandry  and  be  drilled  in  the  exercise  of  civil  govern- 
ment. By  1655  a  similar  Indian  town  was  begun  at  Pun- 
kapog,  later  known  as  Stoughton,  and  others  were  soon 
formed  near  Grafton  and  Concord.  In  Martha's  Vineyard 
the  labors  of  the  Mayhews  were  as  successful ;  and  at- 
tempts of  a  less  fruitful  nature  were  made  to  reach  the 
Indians  at  Sandwich  in  Plymouth,  near  Norwich  in  Con- 
necticut, and  at  Branford  in  New  Haven  Colony.  The 
most  notable  literary  fruit  of  this  enterprise  was  the  pub- 
lication at  the  cost  of  the  English  Society  in  1661  at  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  of  Eliot's  translation  of  the  New  Testament 
into  the  language  of  the  Massachusetts  Indians, — a  work 
which  was  followed  two  years  later  by  the  issue  of  the 
whole  Bible  from  the  same  press.  This  monumental  un- 
dertaking was  followed  by  a  number  of  translations,  em- 
bracing treatises  by  Cotton,  Increase  Mather,  Shepard, 
Baxter,  as  well  as  the  "Cambridge  Platform"  and  the 
Confession   of    1680,.   the   publication   of  which   extended 


INDIA  M  MISSIONS.  1 6  7 

over  a  period  of  nearly  sixty  years.  By  1674  the  "  Pray- 
ing Indians  "  numbered  not  far  from  four  thousand,  gath- 
ered in  part  into  at  least  seven  churches,  and  enjoying  the 
religious  instruction  of  teachers  of  their  own  race,  as  well 
as  the  general  oversight  of  white  missionaries,  in  man}^  set- 
tlements in  Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  and  the  islands.  Of 
these  churches,  four,  and  of  the  Indians,  some  eighteen 
hundred,  were  on  the  islands  of  the  Martha's  Vineyard 
group. 

But  an  unexpected  tempest  largely  wrecked  the  Indian 
missions  thus  auspiciously  begun.  Contrary  to  the  rep- 
resentations sometimes  made,  the  Puritan  settlers  of  New 
England  treated  the  Indians  well.  Except  for  the  short, 
sharp  conflict  with  the  Pequots  in  1637,  the  two  races  were 
at  peace.  The  white  inhabitants  of  the  colonies  carefully 
secured  their  lands  by  purchase,  and  defended  Indian  rights 
by  law.  The  New  England  Puritan  of  the  first  two  gen- 
erations seems  to  have  been  as  honorable  in  his  dealings 
with  the  red  men  as  the  Pennsylvania  Quaker.  But  the 
situation  was  one,  thanks  to  Indian  politics,  where  perma- 
nent peace  between  the  two  races  was  impossible.  Thrust 
in  between  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  on  the  east  and 
the  settlements  of  Connecticut  on  the  west  were  a  number 
of  tribes,  of  which  the  most  powerful  were  the  rivals,  the 
Mohegans  and  the  Narragansetts.  To  keep  on  good  terms 
with  both  was  difficult,  and  the  situation  was  doubtless 
made  all  the  harder  by  a  complete  misunderstanding  on 
the  part  of  these  more  powerful  tribes  of  the  motives  of 
Eliot  and  the  other  missionaries.  The  "  Praying  Indians  " 
were  mostly  from  feeble  tribes,  like  the  Massachusetts  and 
the  Pokanokets.  As  Mr.  John  Fiske  has  pointed  out,  to 
the  stronger  Indian  clans,  who  could  have  comprehended 
little  of  missionary  intentions,  it  probably  seemed  that 
Eliot,  by  his  villages  and  churches,  was  strengthening  the 


1 68  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

white  man's  tribe  by  the  familiar  Indian  method  of  adop- 
tion, causing  it  thus  to  be  an  increasing  menace  to  Indian 
independence.  The  unexpected  attack  upon  the  settle- 
ments, known  as  Philip's  War,  from  the  English  nickname 
of  the  chief  of  the  Wampanoags,  who  organized  the  tribal 
confederacy  designed  to  effect  the  destruction  of  the  set- 
tlements, began  on  June  20,  1675,  and  the  terrible  strug- 
gle lasted  till  the  death  of  Philip,  August  12,  1676.  In 
this  contest  the  Indian  power  in  New  England  was  for- 
ever broken,  the  Narragansetts,  the  Nipmucks,  and  the 
Wampanoags  were  largely  blotted  out ;  but  the  cost  to  the 
colonies  was  frightful.  More  than  half  of  the  eighty  or 
ninety  towms  in  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  were  partially 
destroyed,  ten  or  twelve  were  utterly  consumed.  Nearly 
six  hundred  men,  besides  scores  of  women  and  children, 
lost  their  lives, — many  of  them  by  the  torments  in  which 
Indian  cruelty  has  always  delighted.  And  what  made  the 
settlers  doubly  incensed  was  that  not  a  few  of  the  implic- 
itly trusted  "  Praying  Indians  "  went  back  to  their  savage 
kinsmen,  and  were  the  equals  in  cruelty  of  any  who  at- 
tacked scattered  farm-houses  or  frontier  villages. 

Fortunately  most  of  the  Indian  converts  were  faithful, 
and  they  had  devoted  friends  in  Eliot  and  Captain  Daniel 
Gookin,  who  from  1656  to  his  death,  in  1687,  was  by  ap- 
pointment of  the  General  Court  "  ruler,"  or  superintendent, 
of  the  Massachusetts  converts.  But  the  war  wasted  the 
missions.  When  it  was  over  the  work  was  taken  up  once 
more  ;  and  while  a  large  proportion  of  the  Indians  who  had 
professed  Christianity  were  gathered  once  more  in  their 
old  settlements,  those  who  had  been  partially  civilized  and 
were  in  process  of  training  were  mostly  lost  forever.  It 
was  a  crippled  work ;  but  it  shows  the  true  missionary 
spirit  of  the  New  England  churches  that,  in  spite  of  the 
bitter  feeling  of  hostility  which  the  war  excited,  the  publi- 


INDIAN  MISSIONS.  1 69 

cation  of  books  in  the  Indian  tongue  and  the  gathering  of 
Indian  churches  was  carried  forward  with  persistent  en- 
ergy. EHot  continued  his  work  almost  till  his  death,  in 
1690.  The  real  failure  of  these  missionary  enterprises  to 
make  permanent  Indian  churches  was  due  to  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  Indian  tribes  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
chiefly  through  the  dying  out  of  the  red  race,  in  part  also 
through  the  intermarriage  of  its  remnants  with  negroes, 
causing  the  Indians  to  be  absorbed  in  the  colored  popula- 
tion of  New  England. 

After  the  "  Great  Awakening "  had  aroused  renewed 
religious  activity  in  New  England  during  the  fourth  and 
fifth  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century,  new  attempts  at 
Indian  Christianization  were  begun,  notably  that  among 
the  Housatonic  Indians  of  western  Massachusetts,  devised 
by  Rev.  Samuel  Hopkins  of  West  Springfield  (uncle  of  the 
more  famous  Samuel)  in  1734,  and  carried  out  by  Rev. 
John  Sergeant  at  Stockbridge,  till  his  death,  in  1 749,  who 
was  in  turn  succeeded  from  1751  to  1758  by  the  greatest 
of  New  England  theologians,  Jonathan  Edwards.  Equally 
important  was  a  school  for  Indian  instruction  in  the  house- 
hold of  Rev.  Eleazar  Wheelock  of  Lebanon,  Conn.,  which 
received  as  its  first  pupil  the  Mohegan  Samson  Occom  in 
1743, — a  school  which  developed  in  1769-70  into  Dart- 
mouth College.  This  picturesque  Indian  preacher,  who 
was  welcomed  by  the  pulpits  of  Great  Britain  as  well  as 
of  New  England,  is  still  remembered  by  his  hymn,  be- 
ginning : 

"Awaked  by  Sinai's  awful  sound;  " 

and  he  was,  on  the  whole,  the  most  conspicuous  fruit  of 
these  Indian  missions ;  for,  though  a  native  of  Martha's 
Vineyard,  Caleb  Cheeshahteaumuck,  climbed  the  long 
road  from  barbarism  to  the  Bachelor's  deeree  at  Harvard 


I/O  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

in  1665,  this  sole  Indian  graduate  of  New  England's  oldest 
college  died  at  the  age  of  twenty.  The  well-nigh  com- 
plete extinction  of  the  New  England  aborigines  by  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century  ended  the  possibility  of 
further  missionary  labors  within  the  ancient  borders ; 
though  some  effort  has  been  put  forth  by  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  down  to  the  present  time  to  reach  the  fast- 
receding  tribes  to  the  westward. 

While  the  beginnings  of  these  missionary  activities  were 
occupying  the  attention  of  Eliot  and  his  associates  and 
exciting  a  degree  of  interest  in  the  churches  immediately 
after  the  Cambridge  Synod,  the  Congregational  body  was 
profoundly  stirred  by  the  first  general  discussion  in  which 
it  engaged  on  American  soil, — that  known  as  the  Half- 
Way  Covenant  controversy.  This  dispute,  often  though 
most  erroneously  ascribed  to  political  motives,  really  sprang 
out  of  the  dual  theory  as  to  entrance  into  church-member- 
ship entertained  by  the  settlers  of  New  England.  Unlike 
any  other  division  of  Protestantism  at  that  day  except  the 
Anabaptists,  Congregationalists  maintained  that  only  adult 
persons  of  Christian  experience, — in  the  phrase  of  that 
day,  "  visible  saints," — should  be  admitted  to  the  covenant 
union  which  constituted  the  local  church ;  but  they  also 
held  that,  as  in  the  Jewish  church  of  old,  children  shared 
in  their  parents'  covenanting  and  were  therefore  truly 
members  of  the  church  to  which  their  parents  belonged. 
This  infant-membership  was  not  the  result  of  baptism ; 
rather  it  was  the  covenant  relation  already  acquired  by 
birth  in  a  Christian  household  that  gave  right  to  this  sac- 
rament. But  the  fathers  of  New  England  at  their  coming 
held  that  it  extended  only  to  the  immediate  ofTspring  of 
professed  Christians,  and  hence  restricted  baptism  to  chil- 
dren one  of  whose  parents,  at  least,  was  a  declared  be- 
liever, in  fellowship  with  some  church-      This   restriction 


THE  HALF-WAY  COVENANT.  171 

was  comparatively  easy  at  first,  in  spite  of  the  twofold 
mode  of  entrance  into  church-membership, — by  profession 
and  by  birth, — because  the  leaders  in  the  emigration  were 
men  of  tried  religious  experience,  generally  able  to  give  a 
reason  for  their  faith.  The  line  of  distinction  was  sharp 
between  the  consciously  regenerate  and  that  considerable 
class  even  among  the  first  settlers  who  made  no  claim  to 
a  regenerative  change.  But  with  the  growth  of  the  chil- 
dren of  these  first-comers  the  question  was  made  much 
more  difficult.  These  members  of  the  second  generation 
naturally  show^ed  some  decline  from  the  ardent  type  of 
piety  which  marked  many  of  the  founders.  They  were 
prevailingly  of  moral  life,  anxious  for  the  religious  training 
of  their  children,  and  desirous  of  throwing  about  them  the 
safeguards  of  church- watch  and  discipline;  but  in  many 
instances  they  could  point  to  no  conscious  work  of  divine 
grace  in  their  own  personal  experience. 

What  to  do  with  these  persons  was  not  easy  to  decide. 
To  admit  them  to  the  Lord's  Supper  would  be  to  break 
down  the  whole  theory  of  regenerate  church-membership  ; 
and  though  Robert  Child  and  his  associates  in  Massachu- 
setts, and  a  few  years  later  William  Pitkin  and  his  friends 
in  Connecticut,  desired  that  all  who  would  have  been 
accounted  members  of  the  Church  of  England  at  home 
should  be  admitted  to  the  full  privileges  of  the  New  Eng- 
land churches,  if  of  respectable  character,  this  extension  of 
access  to  the  communion  was  not  put  in  practice  by  any 
of  the  churches  during  the  first  half-century  of  their  exist- 
ence, save  at  Presbyterianly  inclined  Newbury. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  deny  some  church  standing  to 
these  non- regenerate  children  of  the  church  came  to  seem 
not  only  difficult  but  dangerous  to  the  thinking  of  many 
of  the  leaders  of  New  England.  If  these  persons  were  by 
birth  members  of  the  church  to  which  their  parents  had 


172  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

belonged,  when  did  their  membership  cease?  Could  they 
be  cast  out  of  covenant  save  by  excommunication,  and 
could  any  be  excommunicated  save  for  actual  transgres- 
sions of  moral  law  or  heretical  opinions,  with  which  these 
persons  were  not  chargeable?  And  if  their  membership 
was  denied,  what  hold  had  the  church  upon  its  children 
for  that  discipline  which  Puritanism  in  general  believed  so 
essential  for  the  spiritual  upbuilding  of  the  community? 

To  avoid  this  dilemma  the  New  England  churches,  after 
a  long  period  of  agitation,  adopted  a  rather  illogical  com- 
promise. The  non- regenerate  offspring  of  the  church  were 
held  to  be  sufficiently  in  church-covenant  to  transmit  the 
same  degree  of  church-membership,  and  its  accompanying 
right  to  baptism,  in  turn  to  their  children,  on  condition  of 
acquaintance  with  the  main  truths  of  the  gospel  and  a 
sincere  promise  to  walk  in  fellowship  with  and  under  the 
discipline  of  the  church  of  which  they  were  members, — a 
promise  called  "  owning  the  covenant,"  into  which  they 
had  been  born.  But  while  the  abiding  membership  of 
this  earnest  but  non-regenerate  class  was  thus  clearly  rec- 
ognized, its  representatives  were  debarred  from  a  place  at 
the  Lord's  table  or  a  vote  in  church  government  or  in  the 
choice  of  church  officers.  They  were  not  members  in  "  full 
communion."  A  double  classification  of  members  was 
thus  introduced,  and  those  whose  non-regenerate  char- 
acter limited  their  church  privileges  to  a  single  sacrament 
and  the  disciplinary  oversight  of  the  church  were  said  to 
be  members  in  what  its  opponents  of  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury nicknamed  the  "  Half- Way  Covenant." 

The  establishment  of  this  serious  modification  of  the 
system  of  original  New  England  was  the  result  of  a  pro- 
longed discussion,  in  which  the  leaders  were  the  ministry 
of  the  churches  rather  than  the  class  for  whose  benefit  the 
modification  was  made.      It  was  not  political  impulse  that 


THE  HALF-WAY  COVENANT.  173 

led  to  the  change.  Save  in  the  applications  of  Child  in 
Massachusetts  and  Pitkin  in  Connecticut  for  the  full  in- 
troduction of  English  theories  of  church-membership, — re- 
quests for  something  very  unlike  the  Half-Way  Covenant, 
— the  political  note  is  nowhere  heard  in  the  whole  debate. 
No  political  advantages  came  to  the  Half-Way  member  in 
Connecticut  or  Plymouth ;  in  Massachusetts  the  approval 
of  the  system  by  the  Synod  of  1662  was  followed  in  two 
years  by  the  modification  of  the  restriction  of  the  franchise 
to  church-members,  and  the  most  strenuous  debates  over 
its  adoption  by  individual  churches  occurred  after  the 
change  of  the  basis  of  the  electorate  in  1664.  No  men- 
tion of  political  considerations  occurs,  as  far  as  the  writer 
is  aware,  in  any  of  the  voluminous  discussion  which  the 
Half-Way  Covenant  Synod  and  Convention  produced. 
Nor  was  a  share  in  the  government  of  the  churches  an 
impelling  cause.  The  Convention  of  1657  and  the  Synod 
of  1662,  as  well  as  the  votes  of  local  churches,  forbade  the 
Half-Way  member  any  part  in  ecclesiastical  administra- 
tion ;  and  how  consonant  this  prohibition  was  with  the 
general  feeling  of  the  time  is  shown  by  a  declaration  of 
the  Massachusetts  court,  as  late  as  October,  1668,  that 
while  "  euery  church  hath  free  liberty  of  calling,  election, 
&  ordination  of  all  her  officers,  .  .  .  this  Court  doth  order 
&  declare,  &  be  it  hereby  ordered  &  enacted,  that  by  the 
church  is  to  be  meant  such  as  are  in  full  comunion  only." 

The  real  impelling  motive  in  the  adoption  of  the  system 
was  the  desire  of  the  ministers  and  many  of  the  churches 
to  maintain  a  hold  over  those  whose  parents  had  been 
actively  Christian,  but  who  themselves  seemed  slipping 
away  from  the  churches.  It  was  as  a  religious  question 
that  the  Half-Way  Covenant  discussion  had  its  only  im- 
portance. 

The  question  first  presented  itself,  it  would  appear,  in 


1 74  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  ■    [Chap.  vi. 

1634,  when  a  grandfather  of  the  Dorchester  church  asked 
baptism  for  his  grandchild, — the  immediate  parents  of  the 
child  not  being  persons  of  professed  Christian  experience. 
The  request  was  referred  to  the  Boston  church  for  advice ; 
and  that  body  counseled  compliance,  on  the  ground  that 
though  the  immediate  parents  were  not  regenerate,  they 
were  not  so  far  "pagans  and  infidels"  as  to  debar  their 
ofifspring  from  baptism  on  the  strength  of  the  grandfather's 
membership.  This  position  was  not  generally  approved 
a  few  years  after,  even  by  those  who  apparently  counte- 
nanced it  in  1634,  for  Cotton,  Hooker,  and  Richard  Mather 
all  expressed  the  opinion  in  their  early  works  on  Congre- 
gational polity  that  only  the  immediate  offspring  of  be- 
lieving parents  were  to  be  admitted  to  the  rite.  But  the 
problem  grew  increasingly  pressing,  and  opinion  shifted. 
Though  Hooker  and  Davenport  never  departed  from  the 
early  strictness,  by  1645  Mather  argued  in  favor  of  the 
baptism  of  the  children  of  those  whose  church-membership 
rested  on  birth  rather  than  experience,  and  similar  expres- 
sions within  the  next  six  years  from  men  as  influential, 
and  as  scattered,  as  Rev.  Messrs.  Thomas  Shepard,  of  Cam- 
bridge, John  Norton,  of  Ipswich,  Samuel  Stone,  of  Hart- 
ford, John  Warham,  of  Windsor,  Henry  Smith,  of  Wethers- 
field,  Ralph  Partridge,  of  Duxbury,  and  Peter  Prudden,  of 
Milford,  show  that  the  system  commended  itself  to  leading 
men  in  all  four  colonies.  No  wonder  that  the  Massachu- 
setts court  in  its  call  of  the  Cambridge  Synod  in  1646 
specified  "  baptisme,  &  y^  p'sons  to  be  received  thereto  " 
as  a  prime  topic  for  discussion  by  that  assembly. 

Probably  the  Half- Way  Covenant  would  have  been 
adopted  by  the  Cambridge  Synod  had  it  not  been  for 
strenuous  opposition  on  the  part  of  a  few  members,  appar- 
ently led  by  Rev.  Charles  Chauncy,  then  of  Scituate,  but 
to  become,  in  1654,  the  second  president  of  Harvard  Col- 


CONVENTION  OF  1657.  175 

lege.  Both  Richard  Mather  and  Ralph  Partridge  gave 
the  system  a  place  in  the  tentative  platforms  which  they 
prepared  at  the  direction  of  the  Synod,  but  that  body 
passed  the  point  by  in  rather  ambiguous  terms. 

All  the  more  by  reason  of  the  non-action  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Synod  the  topic  became  one  of  increasing  debate. 
But  the  practice  was  first  adopted  by  the  church  at  Ips- 
wich, Mass.,  of  which  Rev.  Thomas  Cobbett  was  minister, 
in  1656.  In  May  of  the  same  year  the  General  Court  of 
Connecticut  was  moved  to  attempt  the  settlement  of  the 
problem  by  a  ministerial  convention,  and  appealed  to  the 
Massachusetts  court  to  assign  a  time  and  place  of  meeting 
and  to  notify  the  other  colonies,  accompanying  its  request 
with  a  series  of  questions  for  debate  in  the  proposed 
assembly.  The  Massachusetts  authorities  did  as  asked, 
appointing  thirteen  prominent  divines  of  their  jurisdiction 
to  meet  at  Boston  on  June  4,  1657,  with  those  ministers 
whom  the  other  colonies  might  send.  The  notification  of 
this  action  and  the  request  for  cooperation  sent  by  Mas- 
sachusetts to  the  other  colonial  courts  was  variously  re- 
ceived. Connecticut,  of  course,  approved  and  appointed 
four  ministerial  representatives  ;  Plymouth  took  no  action  ; 
while  New  Haven,  influenced  by  Davenport,  not  only  re- 
fused to  have  a  part  in  the  convention,  but  sent  an  earnest 
letter  of  protest  against  change  and  insistence  that  the  old 
ways  be  kept. 

Though  representative  of  the  ministers  of  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut  only,  the  Convention  met  for  a  fortnight 
in  June,  1657,  and  formulated  a  series  of  answers  to  the 
questions  which  the  Connecticut  legislature  had  asked. 
These  conclusions  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  ministers  heartily 
supported  the  Half-Way  view ;  and  declared  that  the  non- 
regenerate  member  by  birth  was  entitled  to  transmit  the 
same  status  to  his  children,  and  obtain  baptism  for  them, 


176  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

provided  he  accepted  the  obHgations  of  his  membership, 
as  far  as  he  was  able  without  the  full  transforming  grace 
of  God,  by  solemnly  acknowledging  his  intellectual  belief 
in  the  principles  of  the  gospel  and  his  willingness  to  sub- 
mit to  the  discipline  of  the  church  to  which  he  belonged 
and  to  promote  its  welfare.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
affirmed  that  nothing  but  a  full  Christian  profession  would 
fit  the  member  by  birth,  or  any  other  person,  for  the 
Lord's  table  or  a  vote  in  ecclesiastical  affairs. 

The  Ministerial  Convention  of  1657  had  no  effect  in 
allaying  debate ;  the  question  continued  as  divisive  as 
before.  The  Massachusetts  court  therefore  determined  to 
try  the  healing  virtue  of  a  true  synod,  or  council,  in  which 
all  the  churches  of  the  commonwealth  should  be  repre- 
sented by  their  ministers  and  delegates.  On  December 
31,  1 66 1,  the  legislature  issued  an  order  to  the  churches 
of  the  colony  to  convene  at  Boston,  March  11,  1662,  and 
decide  the  question,  "  Who  are  the  subjects  of  baptisme?  " 
and,  at  the  request  of  the  same  civil  authority,  the  ministers 
of  Boston  and  vicinity  propounded  a  second  query  for  the 
council's  consideration,  as  to  "Whither,  according  to  the 
Word  of  God,  there  ought  to  be  a  conscociation  of 
churches,  &  what  should  be  y^  manner  of  it."  It  is  well 
to  remember  that  what  these  divines  meant  by  "  a  consco- 
ciation "  was  not  the  peculiar  institution  later  known  by 
that  name  in  Connecticut.  The  word  has  as  yet  no  strictly 
technical  usage ;  what  was  to  be  discussed  was  the  nature 
and  conditions  of  fellowship  between  churches. 

On  the  day  appointed  the  Synod  gathered,  with  an 
attendance  of  more  than  seventy,  including  the  most  prom- 
inent survivors  of  the  first  generation  of  Massachusetts 
ministers,  like  Richard  Mather,  John  Wilson,  and  Charles 
Chauncy,  and  the  rising  lights  of  the  second  generation^ 


SYNOD    OF  1662,  I  77 

such  as  Jonathan  Mitchell  and  Increase  Mather.  From 
the  first,  the  question  at  issue  was  hotly  disputed.  About 
an  eighth  of  the  membership,  having  a  weight  dispro- 
portionate to  their  numbers  by  reason  of  the  able  lead- 
ership of  President  Chauncy  of  Harvard  and  including 
Increase  Mather,  strenuously  opposed  any  departure  from 
the  stricter  practice,  and  circulated  writings  by  Rev.  John 
Davenport,  of  New  Haven,  denunciatory  of  the  Half- Way 
Covenant.  The  vast  majority,  however,  led  by  Jonathan 
Mitchell,  Richard  Mather,  and  John  Norton,  favored  the 
larger  practice  and  determined  the  result  of  the  Synod, — 
a  result  which  was  reached  at  its  third  session,  in  Septem- 
ber, 1662.  The  conclusions  arrived  at  were  essentially 
those  of  the  Ministerial  Convention  of  1657.  The  right 
to  bring  his  children  to  baptism  was  extended  to  the  non- 
regenerate  member  who  owned  the  covenant ;  but,  as  be- 
fore, access  to  the  Supper  and  a  vote  in  church  affairs  were 
denied  to  all  whose  Christian  experience  would  not  warrant 
membership  in  full  communion. 

The  baptismal  question  was  the  only  problem  of  moment 
before  the  Synod  of  1662,  and  the  body  therefore  very 
hastily  and  practically  unanimously  approved  a  few  brief 
principles  governing  church-fellowship,  not  materially  di- 
vergent from  the  prescriptions  of  the  "  Cambridge  Plat- 
form." This  second  question  for  the  Synod's  considera- 
tion had  been  a  ministerial  after- thought  and  one  which 
evidently  aroused  little  interest. 

The  Synod  of  1662  was  representative  of  Massachusetts 
only ;  but  the  publication  of  its  results  increased,  rather 
than  diminished,  the  heat  of  the  controversy  in  all  the 
colonies.  No  New  England  discussion  of  the  seventeenth 
century  aroused  such  interest  as  this,  and  the  rivals  on  the 
floor  of  the  Synod  continued  their  strife  in  a  war  of  pam- 


178  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

phlets  after  its  close.  The  chief  effect  of  this  discussion 
was  that  Increase  Mather  was  convinced  of  the  justice  of 
the  Half- Way  Covenant  position,  and  became  a  defender 
of  the  Synod's  conclusions  which  he  had  at  first  opposed. 
In  Connecticut  the  division  of  feeling  was  intensified  by 
the  forcible  union  of  the  colony  of  New  Haven  with  Con- 
necticut by  the  charter  granted  the  latter  by  the  recently 
restored  Charles  II.  in  1662, — a  union  completed  in  1665. 
Under  the  influence  of  Davenport  the  predominant  senti- 
ment of  New  Haven  favored  the  older  strictness ;  the  sen- 
timent of  Connecticut  proper  was  more  divided,  but  in- 
clined to  the  larger  usage.  At  Hartford,  a  quarrel  begun 
in  1666,  in  which  the  colleague  ministers,  Whiting  and 
Haynes,  took  opposing  sides,  led  in  1670  to  the  establish- 
ment of  a  second  church.  The  Stratford  and  Windsor 
churches  were  similarly  rent ;  while  Rev.  Abraham  Pier- 
son,  of  Branford,  led  a  considerable  colony  of  settlers 
from  the  old  New  Haven  jurisdiction  to  Newark,  N.  J., 
where  they  might  be  free  from  Half- Way  Covenant  inno- 
vations, and  could  continue  the  restriction  of  the  franchise 
to  church-members  which  had  once  characterized  New 
Haven,  but  which  the  union  with  Connecticut  abolished. 
After  vain  attempts  to  call  a  Connecticut  Ministerial  As- 
sembly in  1666  and  1667,  the  Connecticut  court  voted 
toleration  for  both  parties  in  the  dispute  in  1669.  But  the 
course  of  events  inclined  the  ecclesiastical  founder  of  New 
Haven,  Rev.  John  Davenport,  to  look  with  misgiving  on 
the  scene  of  his  labors  for  nearly  thirty  years,  and  when 
a  call  came  to  him  from  the  First  Church  in  Boston,  a 
majority  of  the  membership  of  which  shared  Davenport's 
opposition  to  the  Half- Way  Covenant,  he  accepted  the 
invitation,  although  nearly  seventy  5^ears  of  age.  The  re- 
sult was  unhappy  for  him  and  for  the  church, — since  that 
portion   of  its  membership  which  favored  the  larger  view 


liESrLTS   OF   THE  DISPUTE.  179 

and  had  opposed  his  coming  withdrew   and  formed  the 
Third  or  "  Old  South  "   Church  of  Boston. 

But  though  vigorously  opposed  by  many  churches  and 
some  ministers,  and  never  universally  adopted,  the  Half- 
Way  Covenant  won  its  way  into  use  in  the  vast  majority 
of  New  England  churches,  and  so  continued  till  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century.  And  as  it  became 
more  familiar  in  the  usage  of  our  churches,  especially 
under  the  influence  of  the  low  type  of  piety  prevailing  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  it  became  a  far  less  strenuous  and 
worthy  spiritual  instrumentality  than  it  had  been  planned 
to  be  by  the  leaders  in  the  Assemblies  of  1657  and  1662. 
In  its  original  intention  it  had  been  confined  exclusively 
to  those  in  the  covenant  of  the  churches  by  birth  into  the 
household  of  a  church-member;  and  the  owning  of  the 
covenant  by  these  unregenerate  persons  had  been  looked 
upon  as  a  solemn  association  with  the  people  of  God,  by 
which  a  man  pledged  himself  to  do  all  in  his  power  to 
seek  a  Christian  hope  and  lead  a  religious  life.  But  by 
the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  became  the 
frequent  custom  to  admit  all  applicants  of  unblamable 
character  to  Half- Way  Covenant  membership  and  their 
children  to  baptism.  In  times  of  religious  interest  the 
Covenant  came  to  be  administered  to  large  bodies  of 
young  people.  Instead  of  being,  as  it  was  intended,  a 
means  of  retaining  those  under  the  watch  and  discipline 
of  the  churches  who  were  members  by  birth  and  yet 
seemed  sHpping  away,  it  became  a  method  of  entrance 
into  the  church  for  those  also  who  could  advance  no  birth- 
right claim.  This  was  a  detrimental  modification  of  the 
original  theory,  and  one  that  undoubtedly  did  much  to 
lower  the  spiritual  tone  of  the  churches.  It  vastly  aug- 
mented that  which  was  the  main  evil  of  the  Half- Way 
Covenant    system    always, — the    toleration    of    a    partial 


l80  THE    CONGREGATION ALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

Christian  profession,  allowing  men  who  might  have  been 
led  to  a  full  Christian  experience  to  rest  content  with  an 
imperfect  and  merely  intellectual  religious  life. 

A  modification  of  the  Half-Way  system,  the  beginnings 
of  which  became  apparent  within  less  than  a  score  of 
years  after  the  Synod  of  1662,  deserves  notice.  The 
original  advocates  of  the  larger  practice  barred  the  non- 
regenerate  member  from  any  share  in  the  eucharist  or  in 
church  administration.  But  to  some  this  seemed  an  undue 
restriction,  and  as  early  as  1677  advocates  of  the  full  ex- 
tension of  churchly  privileges  to  the  non-regenerate  but 
earnest-minded  members  of  the  churches  were  to  be  found 
among  the  New  England  ministers.  This  view  was,  how- 
ever, most  elaborately  set  forth  by  Rev.  Solomon  Stod- 
dard, who  served  the  church  at  Northampton,  Mass.,  from 
1669  to  1729,  and  who  was  in  his  day  the  most  influential 
minister  in  the  Connecticut  valley.  Advocated  by  Stod- 
dard at  the  "  Reforming  Synod  "  of  1679,  this  theory,  often 
called  "  Stoddardeanism,"  was  argued  by  him  in  print  in 
his  "Instituted  Churches"  of  1700;  and  though  attacked 
by  Increase  Mather,  was  further  defended  by  Stoddard  in 
a  sermon  published  in  1 708,  and  especially  in  his  "Appeal 
to  the  Learned  "  of  1709.  Though  not  adopted  by  Stod- 
dard's own  church  till  after  1 706,  this  theory,  largely 
through  his  influence,  became  widespread  in  western  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Connecticut  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  did  not  lack  defenders  in  other  parts  of  New  England, 
though  it  always  remained  the  \-iew  of  a  fraction  only  of 
the  churchesx 

The  Stoddardean  theory  held  that  the  Lord's  Supper 
was  designed  for  "  all  adult  Members  of  the  Church  who 
are  not  scandalous."  It  was  to  be  "  apph'ed  to  A-isible 
Saints,  though  Unconverted,  therefore  it  is  for  their  Sav- 
ing good,  and   consequently  for   their  Conversion."     In 


"  .9  TODD.  I RDEA  A  'ISM. ''  I  8 1 

Stoddard's  judgment  "  visible  saints  "  were  "  such  as  make 
a  serious  profession  of  the  true  ReHgion,  together  with 
those  that  do  descend  from  them,  till  rejected  of  God." 
This  was  essentially  an  importation  into  New  England  of 
the  inclusive  membership  theories  of  England  or  Scotland 
which  the  New  England  fathers  had  abandoned,  though  it 
differed  from  those  conceptions  of  church-relationship  in 
that  it  laid  stress  on  covenant-membership  as  the  basis 
of  access  to  the  Lord's  table.  It  did  not,  as  has  often 
erroneously  been  represented,  encourage  every  respectable 
person  in  the  community  to  come  to  the  communion.  On 
the  contrary,  it  was  for  the  "  visible  saint,"  for  the  church- 
member  by  birth,  even  though  "  in  a  Natural  Condition," 
as  well  as  for  the  member  by  profession  of  Christian  ex- 
perience, that  the  sacrament  was  declared  to  be  instituted. 
Stoddard  was  a  man  of  unusual  piety  and  ability.  Liv- 
ing in  an  age  of  low  spiritual  life,  his  ministry  was  marked 
by  a  succession  of  revivals.  It  is  perhaps  useless  to  at- 
tempt to  pry  into  the  processes  by  which  he  reached  his 
peculiar  sacramental  views.  His  "  Instituted  Churches  " 
shows  a  large  sympathy  with  a  theory  of  the  church  more 
akin  to  the  Presbyterianism  of  his  day  than  to  early  New 
England  Congregationalism.  But  there  is  a  tradition, 
dating  back  certainly  to  Rev.  Joseph  Lathrop,  pastor  at 
West  Springfield,  Mass.,  from  1756  to  1820,  which  af^rms 
that  Stoddard  began  his  Northampton  ministry  in  an  un- 
regenerate  state,  and  became  converted  at  the  Lord's  table. 
Yet,  to  the  present  writer,  it  seems  quite  as  probable  that 
family  experiences  may  have  emphasized  any  tendency 
toward  insistence  on  participation  in  the  Supper  as  a  duty 
incumbent  on  all  church- members  which  was  inherent  in 
Stoddard's  general  cast  of  thought.  His  wife  was  a 
daughter  of  Rev.  John  Warham,  of  Windsor,  Conn. ;  and 
one  of  the  few  facts  known  regarding  Stoddard's  father- 


1 82  THE    COKGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

in-law  is  that,  though  a  deeply  religious  man,  he  spent 
much  of  his  later  life  under  such  a  burdening  sense  of  un- 
worthiness  to  partake  of  the  consecrated  elements  that, 
while  he  administered  the  communion  to  his  flock,  he  often 
refused  to  share  in  the  Supper  himself,  and  this  state  of 
melancholy  self-distrust  continued  till  his  death,  in  1670. 
Brought  thus  into  his  own  family  as  a  practical  question, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  Stoddard  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  all  church-members  to  come  to  the 
Lord's  table,  without  a  continual  torturing  self-examination 
as  to  whether  they  were  really  regenerate  or  not. 

Yet  though  Stoddardeanism  became  considerably  wide- 
spread, and  by  the  time  that  Cotton  Mather  wrote  his 
"  Ratio  Disciplinse  "  was  practiced  peacefully  side  by  side 
with  the  Half-Way  Covenant  or  the  older  New  England 
strictness,  it  was  a  complete  denial  of  the  original  Congre- 
gational conception  of  the  church.  The  revival  of  the 
I,|  ideal  of  an  exclusively  regenerate  membership,  and  the 
attack  upon  all  departures  from  it,  begun  by  Jonathan 
Edwards,  in  1 749,  and  continued  by  his  disciples  and 
spiritual  successors,  Joseph  Bellamy,  Chandler  Robbins, 
Cyprian  Strong,  Stephen  West,  Nathaniel  Emmons,  and 
other  representatives  of  the  so-called  "  New  Divinitv,"  led 
to  a  general  abandonment  both  of  the  Half-Way  Cove- 
nant and  of  Stoddardeanism  by  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  though  in  a  few  instances  the  Half-Way 
practice  survived  till  1820,  and  in  one  church, — that  at 
Charlestown,  Mass., — till  1828. 

This  brief  sketch  of  the  later  story  of  the  chief  discussion 
which  disturbed  the  first  century  of  New  England  Congre- 
gationalism has  carried  us  beyond  the  seventh  and  eighth 
decades  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  which  we  must 
now  return.  By  the  time  of  the  meeting  of  the  Synod  of 
1662  the  founders  of  New  England  were  passing  rapidly 


HALF-WAY  CO  J  ^ENA  NT  A  BA  ND  ONED.  \  8  3 

off  the  stage.  Many  had  indeed  gone  before  :  Hooker  had 
died  in  1647;  Cotton,  in  1652;  Winthrop,  in  1649;  and 
Bradford,  in  1657.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  prominence  of  men 
of  the  second  generation,  like  Jonathan  Mitchell  and  In- 
crease Mather,  in  the  Half- Way  Covenant  discussion,  the 
chief  weight  in  the  decision  seems  still  to  have  been  that 
of  the  surviving  leaders  of  the  settlement.  But  ten  years 
after  the  Synod  we  are  clearly  in  the  time  of  the  second 
generation;  and,  notwithstanding  the  survival  of  a  few 
patriarchs  of  the  older  time  like  the  Apostle  Eliot,  the 
most  powerful  influence  in  the  New  England  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  founders  was  Increase  Mather. 

The  ablest  of  his  distinguished  family,  Increase  Mather 
has  been  most  variously  judged.  He  was  essentially  a 
conservative,  he  was  far  from  universally  popular  in  his 
own  lifetime ;  but  there  was  no  man  in  the  New  England 
of  his  day  who  compared  with  him  in  ability,  leadership, 
or  influence,  or  who  labored  more  sincerely  for  what  he 
deemed  the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Born  in 
1639  in  the  Dorchester  home  of  his  father,  Richard,  he 
graduated  from  Harvard  College  in  1656,  and  soon  sailed 
for  England,  where  he  found  acceptance  as  a  preacher  in 
the  closing  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  but  whence  he  re- 
turned speedily  after  the  Restoration,  possessed  of  a  wide 
and  useful  acquaintance  with  English  men  and  affairs.  On 
his  arrival  in  his  native  New  England  he  began  to  preach 
to  the  Second  Church  of  Boston,  though  he  did  not  accept 
the  office  of  teacher  till  1664,  and  in  the  service  of  this 
church  he  remained  till  his  death,  in  1723.  The  post  was 
probably  the  most  conspicuous  in  influence  of  any  in  the 
colony,  especially  after  the  crippling  and  division  of  the 
Boston  First  Church  consequent  upon  the  Half-Way  Cov- 
enant discussion  and  the  settlement  of  John  Davenport. 
For  the  last  forty  years  of    this  distinguished   pastorate 


1 84  THE    COXGREGATIONALISTS.  [CuAr.  vi. 

he  had  as  his  colleague,  and  in  the  fullest  sense  as  his 
associate,  his  gifted  though  less  able  son,  Cotton  Mather, 
who  survived  him  till  1728.  During  the  last  three  decades 
of  the  seventeenth  century  Increase  Mather  was  in  the 
forefront  of  every  ecclesiastical  action  in  Massachusetts, 
and  his  prominence  in  educational  and  political  affairs  was 
hardly  less  conspicuous.  From  1685  to  1701  he  was 
president  of  Harvard  College.  In  the  stress  of  colonial 
affairs  after  the  downfall  of  the  first  charter,  it  was  In- 
crease Mather  who  was  sent  to  England  in  1688  to  plead 
the  Massachusetts  cause  against  Andros  with  James  II. ; 
and  it  was  Mather  who  secured  for  Massachusetts  more 
than  any  other  American  could  have  obtained  in  the  new 
provincial  charter  of  1691.  So  preeminently  did  Mather 
stand  forth  as  the  first  citizen  of  his  colony  that  the 
Engli.sh  Government,  in  granting  the  charter,  made  him 
the  nominator  of  those  who  should  first  bear  office  under 
it.  Yet  even  the  cares  of  this  arduous  political  mission 
could  not  draw  him  away  from  that  interest  in  ecclesias- 
tical affairs  which  was  always  his  chief  concern.  His  stay 
in  England  was  marked  by  the  formation,  chiefly  through 
his  agency,  of  the  union  of  Presbyterian  and  Congrega- 
tional ministers  in  and  about  London,  in  1691, — a  union 
which,  indeed,  fell  apart  soon  after  Mather's  return  to 
America,  but  which  was,  while  it  lasted,  the  only  exten- 
sive association  of  the  two  English  bodies  which  the 
seventeenth  century  beheld,  and  which  had  as  its  basis 
the  "  Heads  of  Agreement,"  of  which  there  will  be  occa- 
sion to  speak  in  treating  of  the  "  Saybrook  Platform." 
But  with  all  his  preeminence,  it  was  Increase  Mather's 
misfortune  to  be  to  some  extent  passed  by  in  the  drift  of 
events,  so  that  his  old  age  was  a  period  of  disappointment ; 
yet  he  was  never  without  influence,  and  was  as  long  as  he 
li\-ed  the  foremost  of  the  New  England  ministrv,  alike  in 


INCREASE   MATHER.  I  85 

the  merit  of  the  services  wliich  he  had  rendered  to  his 
country  and  its  churches  and  the  reverence  which  his 
abilities  compelled. 

This  leadership  of  Increase  Mather  in  the  second  gener- 
ation was  exhibited  in  the  summons  of  the  next  Synod 
which  followed  that  of  1662, — the  "  Reforming  Synod" 
of  1679—80, — an  assembly  which  has  the  distinction  of 
being  the  last  Congregational  Synod  of  Massachusetts. 
The  gathering  of  this  council  was  not  occasioned  by  any 
general  discussion  such  as  centered  public  interest  in  the 
Half- Way  Covenant.  On  the  contrary,  it  met  to  deplore 
the  spiritual  deadness  of  the  times,  and  to  devise  a  rem- 
edy for  their  evils.  Its  immediate  occasion  was  what  the 
leaders  of  New  England  believed  to  be  a  series  of  divine 
judgments  consequent  upon  religious  decay.  As  has  al- 
ready been  pointed  out,  the  second  generation  manifested 
little  of  the  religious  zeal  which  had  animated  the  fathers 
of  New  England.  The  fire  of  the  first  enthusiasm  had 
spent  much  of  its  force, — it  is  the  universal  experience  of 
mankind  that  ideals  which  profoundly  stir  one  age  lose 
something  of  their  power  in  the  next  epoch, — and  while 
New  England  was  still  an  intensely  religious  land  when 
judged  by  the  standard  of  contemporary  England,  the 
type  of  piety  was  less  warmly  experiential,  the  additions 
to  the  churches  were  fewer,  and  serious  cases  of  discipline 
seem  to  have  been  more  common  than  in  the  days  when 
the  enterprise  had  more  of  novelty.  New  England  was 
becoming  more  provincial.  Its  founders  had  been  leaders 
in  a  great  cause  which  had  been  that  also  of  thousands 
in  the  home-land  who  never  crossed  the  seas.  Till  the 
Restoration  they  still  continued  actors,  in  a  measure,  on  the 
national  stage.  But  with  the  return  of  the  Stuarts  New 
England  ceased  to  have  weight  in  the  mother-country. 
The  party  whose  principles  it  represented  was  defeated 


1 86  THE    CONGREGATIONALISrS.  [CiiAr.  vi. 

and  proscribed ;  other  interests  than  those  for  which  the 
Puritan  cared  largely  engrossed  English  thought.  New 
England  was  no  longer  a  formative  factor  in  English  re- 
ligious life ;  while  the  second  generation,  brought  up  in 
the  hard  battle  with  the  half-tamed  wilderness,  lacked  that 
generous  training  gained  from  the  institutions  of  an  old 
and  stable  civilization  and  developed  by  participation  in 
struggles  of  national  importance,  which  the  fathers  so 
richly  enjoyed.  Doubtless  it  was  well  for  the  future  of 
America  that  sympathy  in  thought  between  Old  Eng- 
land and  the  New  was  thus  interrupted,  and  that  political 
bickerings  added  to  the  separation  between  the  two  lands, 
for  it  made  the  de\'elopment  of  New  England  a  hardy  and 
independent  growth  ;  but  its  immediate  effect  was  to  stunt 
the  life  which  drew  its  sustenance  from  the  scanty  colonial 
soil.  All  through  the  later  colonial  period  fancy  looked 
back  with  almost  pathetic  lamentation  to  the  early  days 
as  a  golden  age  of  piety  and  an  era  of  men  of  strength ; 
and  though  there  was  much  of  exaggeration  in  this  view, 
there  was  a  measure  of  truth  also,  for  the  later  New  Eng- 
land was  poorer  in  enthusiasm,  poorer  in  men  of  conspicu- 
ous leadership,  less  endowed  with  a  sense  of  a  mission  to 
fulfill  than  the  New  England  of  the  founders. 

In  the  eighth  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century  material 
losses  enhanced  this  feeling  of  spiritual  decline.  Disas- 
trous conflagrations  in  Boston  in  1676  and  1679,  visitations 
of  the  smallpox,  and  above  all  the  destructive  struggle  of 
1675-76  known  as  Philip's  War,  brought  distress  to  all 
parts  of  Massachusetts ;  while  the  threatening  movements 
which  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  the  charter  had  already 
begun  to  make  themselves  felt. 

To  Increase  Mather  it  seemed  desirable  that  a  Synod 
should  assemble  to  consider  the  situation ;  and  therefore, 
at  his  motion,  a  petition,   bearing  his  name  and  that  of 


THE    ''REFORMING   SYNODS  187 

eighteen  others  of  the  Massachusetts  ministry,  was  pre- 
sented to  the  General  Court  at  its  session  beginning  May 
28,  1679,  praying  that  such  a  council, should  be  called. 
The  court  heard  the  request,  and  ordered  that  the  Synod 
should  meet  on  September  loth,  at  Boston,  "for  the  re~ 
uisall  of  the  platforme  of  discipljne  agreed  vpon  by  the 
churches,  1647,  ^'^^  what  else  may  appeare  necessary  for 
the  preventing  schishmes,  hseresies,  prophaness,  &  the 
establishment  of  the  churches  in  one  faith  &  order  of  the 
gospell," — a  problem  embodied  more  succinctly  in  the  two 
questions  handed  in  by  the  petitioners  and  approved  by 
the  court,  "  What  are  the  euills  that  haue  provoked  the 
Lord  to  bring  his  judgments  on  New  England?"  and 
"  What  is  to  be  donn  that  so  those  evills  may  be  re- 
formed? " 

Pursuant  to  this  call,  the  representatives  of  the  churches 
gathered  at  Boston  at  the  time  appointed,  and  after  a 
session  of  ten  days  adopted  a  document  draughted  by  In- 
crease Mather  setting  forth  the  Synod's  sense  of  the  decay 
of  godliness  in  the  land ;  of  the  increase  of  pride ;  neglect 
of  worship ;  sabbath- breaking ;  lack  of  family  government ; 
censurings,  intemperance,  falsehood,  and  love  of  the 
world :  and  recommending,  as  means  for  combating  these 
evils,  insistence  on  strictness  in  admission  to  communion ; 
the  strengthening  of  family  and  church  discipline ;  the 
appointment  of  a  pastor,  teacher,  and  ruling  elder  in  each 
church,  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  New  England  churches, 
instead  of  having  only  a  single  minister,  as  had  already 
become  the  rule ;  the  payment  of  adequate  ministerial 
salaries;  the  careful  execution  of  law,  especially  of  the 
statutes  regulating  the  sale  of  spirits;  a  renewal  of  church 
covenants ;  and  care  for  schools,  especially  for  Harvard 
College,  then  the  sole  source  of  ministerial  supply.  At 
the  same  time,  and  as  a  measure  for  religious  betterment, 


1 88  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

the  Synod  "  unanimously  approved "  the  "  Cambridge 
Platform,"  "for  the  substance  of  it." 

This  enumeration  of  evils  and  suggestion  of  remedies 
undoubtedly  did  good  in  that  it  stirred  up  the  churches 
to  renewed  self-examination,  and  led,  for  a  time  at  least, 
to  greater  painstaking  in  the  instruction  of  the  young,  as 
well  as  to  special  meetings  designed  to  awaken  their  at- 
tention to  religious  things.  But  the  most  permanently 
memorable,  if  least  discussed,  action  of  this  Synod  was  the 
result  of  the  appointment  of  a  committee  on  the  last  day 
of  its  first  session  to  "  draw  up  a  Confession  of  faith  "  and 
report  it  to  a  second  session  on  May  12,  1680.  '  Though 
the  Cambridge  Synod  had  approved  the  doctrinal  parts  of 
the  Westminster  Confession  in  1648  as  "  very  holy,  ortho- 
dox, &  judicious,"  and  had  therefore  "  freely  &  fully  " 
consented  to  it  "  for  the  substance  therof,"  that  Confession 
had  been  revised  by  English  Congregationalists  at  a  Synod 
held  at  the  Savoy  Palace  in  London  in  1658;  and  in  ad- 
dition to  the  changes  introduced  by  Parliament  when  the 
Confession  had  been  declared  the  religious  standard  of 
England,  the  English  Congregationalists  had  rewritten  a 
number  of  articles,  leaving  their  doctrinal  significance 
essentially  unaltered,  but  amending  the  phraseology  here 
and  there,  and  changing  every  passage  incompatible  with 
Congregational  theories  of  church  government.  To  the 
minds  of  the  leaders  of  Massachusetts  it  doubtless  seemed 
well  that  a  similar  readaptation  of  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession should  bear  testimony  to  the  common  faith  of  New 
England. 

The  committee  on  the  creed  was  made  up  of  Urian 
Oakes,  acting-president  of  Harvard,  and  Rev.  Messrs. 
Increase  Mather,  Solomon  Stoddard,  Samuel  Torrey,  of 
Weymouth,  James  Allen,  of  the  Boston  First  Church, 
Samuel  Willard,  of  the  Boston  "  Old  South,"  John  Higgin- 


THE   CONFESSION  OF  16S0.  189 

son,  of  Salem,  and  Josiah  Flynt,  of  Dorchester.  It  was  a 
body  as  able  as  any  that  could  have  been  gathered  in 
Massachusetts,  and  undoubtedly  might  have  formulated 
an  original  Confession  of  learning  and  force  had  it  so 
chosen ;  but  three  of  its  most  prominent  members  had 
been  in  England  at  the  time  of  the  preparation  of  the  Savoy 
Confession  about  twenty-two  years  before,  and  the  desire 
of  all  was  strong  that  the  essential  unity  of  belief  between 
the  Congregational  churches  of  Old  England  and  the  New 
should  be  expressed,  if  possible,  by  a  common  Confession. 
Nor  had  there  been  as  yet  any  serious  doctrinal  discussions 
in  New  England.  The  churches  still  stood,  as  at  their 
origin,  on  the  basis  of  the  general  Puritan  theology  of 
England  as  it  had  been  in  the  time  of  their  beginnings. 
Increase  Mather  could  say  with  truth,  as  he  said  in  the 
preface  commending  the  results  of  this  session  of  the 
Synod  in  1680:  "It  is  well  known,  that  as  to  matters  of 
Doctrine  we  agree  with  other  Reformed  Churches :  Nor 
was  it  that,  but  what  concerns  Worship  and  Discipline, 
that  caused  our  Fathers  to  come  into  this  wilderness." 
The  setting  forth  of  a  new  Confession  aroused  no  general 
interest,  for  no  one  could  doubt  what  its  essential  content 
would  be, — it  was  simply  one  of  various  devices  for  the 
betterment  of  the  churches  in  this  time  of  loss  and,  as  it 
was  believed,  of  judgment. 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  when  the  Synod  met  for 
its  second  session,  under  the  moderatorship  of  Increase 
Mather,  the  committee  recommended  and  the  Assembly 
adopted  the  Savoy  Confession,  changing  a  word  here  and 
there,  asserting  more  distinctly  the  church-membership  of 
children  of  Christian  parents  which  the  Half- Way  Cove- 
nant discussion  had  brought  into  prominence  in  New  Eng- 
land ;  but  making  no  serious  alteration  except  to  substitute 
for  the  guarded  expressions  of  the  Savoy  symbol  concern- 


I  go  THE    CONGKEGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

ing  the  interference  of  magistrates  in  religious  matters  an 
article  chiefly  in  words  borrowed  from  the  Westminster 
Confession,  which  more  positively  set  forth  the  authority 
of  the  state  in  doctrinal  questions, — a  change  which  can- 
not be  deemed  an  improvement.  The  lengthy  Confession 
was  twice  read  to  the  Synod ;  but  it  awakened  no  debate 
of  consequence,  and  a  session  of  two  days  sufficed,  under 
Mather's  energetic  leadership,  for  the  establishment  of 
what  has  since  been  known  by  the  title  of  the  "  Confession 
of  1680"  as  the  public  testimony  of  the  Massachusetts 
churches  to  their  faith. 

So  came  into  existence  a  creed  which  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  of  America  have  always  held  in  veneration, 
and  which  the  National  Council  in  1865  affirmed  in  its 
"Burial  Hill  Declaration"  substantially  embodies  their 
faith.  It  was,  not  imposed  on  individual  churches,  nor 
was  it  intended  as  a  substitute  for  local  creeds.  Two 
churches  did  indeed  employ  it  as  their  own  creedal  ex- 
pression,—  the  First  Church,  Cambridge,  and  the  "  Old 
South,"  Boston,  though  in  the  latter  case,  at  least,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  it  was  ever  adopted  by  formal  vote  of 
the  church.  No  Congregational  church  has  been  bound 
by  it  in  the  sense  in  which  every  Presbyterian  church  is 
bound  by  the  Westminster  Confession.  But  it  remains 
the  fullest  and  the  most  respected  testimony  to  the  faith 
of  those  churches  as  that  faith  appeared  to  the  men  of  the 
last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  adoption  of  this  Confession  was  an  event  of  less 
immediate  concern  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts  than 
the  great  political  overturn  of  five  years  later,  which 
threatened  for  a  time  to  make  profound  alterations  in  the 
state,  and  which  led  to  a  considerable  modification  of  the 
ecclesiastical  policy  of  the  colony.  The  charter  of  1629, 
as  interpreted  by  the  founders  of  Massachusetts,  rendered 


LOSS   OF   THE    CHARTER.  191 

that  commonwealth  practically  self-governing,  and  had 
therefore  long  been  looked  upon  with  disfavor  by  the 
Stuart  sovereigns.  It  had  been  earnestly  defended  by  the 
early  settlers  against  the  encroachments  of  Charles  I.  and 
of  Parliament;  but  Charles  II.  was  now  attacking  it,  and 
the  situation  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  favored  such 
an  onslaught.  In  the  mother-country  the  opponents  of 
the  religious  system  of  New  England  were  in  authority ; 
in  the  colony  the  old  sturdy  Puritan  type  of  the  Winthrops 
and  Dudleys  had,  to  some  extent,  given  place  to  a  society 
swayed  by  prospects  of  political  advantage,  especially  in 
the  chief  towns, — a  society  whose  aspirations  and  affilia- 
tions favored  rather  than  discountenanced  closer  connection 
with  the  royal  authorities.  In  1683  that  enemy  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, Edward  Randolph,  succeeded  in  serving  upon 
the  colonial  government  a  writ  summoning  it  to  show 
cause  before  the  English  courts  why  the  charter  should 
not  be  vacated.  Though  the  Upper  House  of  the  legisla- 
ture favored  submission  to  such  a  revision  of  the  charter 
as  the  king  might  choose,  the  Lower  House,  represent- 
ing as  it  did  the  still  strongly  Puritan  sentiment  of  the 
common  people  and  the  country  towns,  refused.  But  the 
blow  fell.  In  June  and  October,  1684,  the  English  Court 
of  Chancery  declared  the  charter  vacated.  All  that  the 
founders  of  Massachusetts  had  held  dear  in  civil  liberty, 
ecclesiastical  polity,  or  even  personal  property,  was  with- 
out legal  safeguard.  A  revision  of  the  powers  of  the 
Massachusetts  government  by  the  English  authorities  was 
doubtless  sure  to  come  at  some  time.  The  charter  of 
Charles  I.  was  an  anomaly  as  soon  as  the  colony  grew 
powerful  enough  to  be  in  any  sense  a  rival  to  the  mother- 
country.  The  privileges  which  it  granted  were  too  nearly 
those  of  independence  to  have  continued  in  a  large  colony 
in  the  seventeenth  century  without  civil  war ;  though  the 


192  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

smallness  of  Connecticut  eventually  preserved  to  her  rights 
similar  to  those  which  Massachusetts  now  lost.  It  was 
well,  too,  that  a  broader  policy  of  religious  toleration  and 
a  wider  extension  of  the  franchise  than  Massachusetts  had 
heretofore  allowed  should  be  established.  The  colonial 
government  had  been  neither  tolerant  nor  conciliatory 
toward  those  who  had  differed  from  its  way  in  church  or 
state.  But  such  a  desirable  revision  was  very  different 
from  the  revolution  which  the  annulling  of  the  charter 
accomplished.  By  that  act  every  corporation  created, 
every  town  government  established,  every  sale  of  land 
effected  by  virtue  of  powers  conferred  by  the  charter  of 
1629,  was  made  void.  The  whole  legal  establishment  of 
the  churches,  the  entire  body  of  colonial  law,  was  swept 
away. 

These  radical  changes  in  the  organic  law  of  Massachu- 
setts were  effected  under  Charles  II.,  but  that  monarch 
died  on  February  6,  1685,  without  having  arranged  for 
the  new  governments  which  were  to  take  the  place  of  the 
old  in  New  England,  though  it  had  been  the  king's  inten- 
tion to  make  Colonel  Piercy  Kirke  governor,  a  man  soon 
to  become  notorious  for  his  cruelties  in  the  suppression  of 
Monmouth's  rebellion.  So  turmoiled  were  the  early  days 
of  James  II.  that  it  was  not  till  1686  that  the  new  govern- 
ment was  set  up.  After  the  brief  presidency  of  Joseph 
Dudley,  beginning  in  May  of  that  year,  the  governorship 
of  all  New  England  was  taken  by  Sir  Edmund  Andros, 
who  arrived  at  Boston  on  the  20th  of  the  following  De- 
cember. Under  the  new  form  of  government,  which  as- 
serted itself  in  a  few  months  over  all  the  Puritan  colonies, 
directly  representative  institutions  no  longer  existed.  At 
the  head  of  the  colonies  was  a  governor  of  royal  appoint- 
ment, instead  of  chief  magistrates  chosen  by  the  freemen. 
For  his  assistance  there  was  a  council,  designated  by  the 


'  THE  ANDROS  EPISODE.  1 93 

king.  To  this  non-elective  body,  which  took  the  place  of 
the  popular  legislatures,  the  law-making  power  was  com- 
mitted, and  by  governor  and  council  taxes  could  be  laid. 
And  to  the  New  England  Congregationalist  of  the  old 
school  not  the  least  of  the  offensive  features  of  the  politi- 
cal situation  was  the  open  countenance  given  by  Randolph 
to  the  efforts  which  had  been  begun  in  1679  to  introduce 
Episcopacy  into  the  colonies  and  which  resulted  in  the 
formation  of  an  Episcopal  congregation  in  Boston, — that 
of  the  famous  King's  Chapel, — on  June  15,  1686.  This 
feeling  of  dread  was  strengthened  when  Andros  and  Ran- 
dolph demanded  the  use  of  the  "Old  South"  meeting- 
house for  worship  in  conformity  with  the  usage  of  the 
Church  of  England  during  such  time  as  it  was  not  occupied 
by  its  regular  Sunday  congregation.  A  modern  Congre- 
gationalist, conscious  that  the  laws  under  which  he  lives 
will  permit  no  other  religious  body  to  fetter  him  in  the 
free  exercise  of  his  worship,  and  accustomed  to  see  mem- 
bers of  Christian  communions  of  various  names  labor  side 
by  side  with  mutual  respect  and  sometimes  with  fraternal 
cooperation,  may  find  it  hard  to  sympathize  with  the  feel- 
ing displayed  by  his  ancestors  against  the  introduction  of 
a  form  of  worship  which  was  that  of  the  mother-country. 
But  his  sense  of  surprise  disappears  when  he  recalls  the 
fact  that  Episcopacy  w^as  still  the  sole  legal  form  of  wor- 
ship in  England,  that  Congregationalism  was  still  pro- 
scribed in  the  home-land,  that  the  poHtical  institutions  of 
New  England  were  prostrate,  and  the  feeble  colonies  were 
wholly  at  the  mercy  of  a  government  avowedly  disposed 
to  support  Episcopal  interests.  It  seemed  no  very  im- 
probable supposition  that  a  power  which  had  not  hesitated 
to  vacate  the  title  of  every  Massachusetts  farmer's  home- 
stead and  do  away  with  all  popular  representation  in  the 
government    might    enforce    on   reluctant    New   England 


194  ^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  '  [Chap.  vi. 

something  of  that  Episcopal  uniformity  which  was  legally 
maintained  in  the  home-land.  The  New  Englander's  fears 
may  have  been  exaggerated.  His  worst  forebodings  were 
not  realized.  Andros  showed  himself,  on  the  whole,  a  well- 
intentioned  man,  who  fulfilled  the  duties  of  his  office  with 
honesty  and  with  as  much  fairness  as  could  be  expected 
of  a  courtier  out  of  sympathy  with  the  political  and  relig- 
ious ideas  of  the  land  over  which  he  was  called  to  admin- 
ister. But  had  he  been  a  far  better  governor  than  he 
really  was,  his  rule  would  have  been  none  the  less  a 
tyranny,  for  he  represented  the  Stuart  attempt  to  take 
away  the  liberties  which  the  colonies  had  enjoyed  and 
modify  essentially  the  institutions  which  they  had  created. 
Fortunately  for  New  England,  the  revolt  of  Old  Eng- 
land from  James  II.  made  the  dominance  of  the  Stuart 
system  in  New  England  brief ;  and  happily,  also,  Massa- 
chusetts was  represented  at  this  junctuie  by  Increase 
Mather  at  the  royal  court.  The  foremost  exponent  of  the 
old  Puritan  spirit  which  still  dominated  all  the  community 
except  a  portion  of  the  trading  and  political  class  chiefly 
to  be  found  in  Boston,  Mather  slipped  out  of  Massachu- 
setts early  in  April,  1688,  as  the  informal  representative 
of  the  people  of  his  native  colony.  Arrived  in  London, 
he  presented  his  case  before  James  II.  and  was  received 
with  personal  favor,  though  the  requests  which  he  made 
were  not  granted.  But  meanwhile  he  diligently  cultivated 
the  friendship  of  the  leading  non-conformists,  and  obtained, 
to  some  extent,  the  favor  of  the  Whig  leaders,  so  that 
when  the  revolution  of  the  autumn  of  1688  drove  James 
from  his  throne  and  substituted  the  joinc  sovereignty  of 
William  and  Mary,  Increase  Mather  was  able  to  approach 
the  new  government  with  some  prospect  of  a  favorable 
hearing.  Such  an  advocate  was  needed,  for  on  the  tardy 
arrival  of  news  of  the  landing  of  William  in  England,  the 


THE  NEW  CHARTER.  1 95 

people  of  Boston  arose  on  April  18,  1689,  and  made 
Andros  and  his  official  following  prisoners.  In  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut  the  old  governments  were  re- 
stored by  popular  insistence.  But  only  the  timely  efforts 
of  Mather  prevented  the  issue  of  an  order  from  William 
directing  that  Andros  continue  in  authority.  Yet,  though 
proceedings  for  the  voiding  of  the  CDnnecticut  charter  had 
not  advanced  so  far  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  the  ancient 
government  of  that  colony  to  resume  its  sway  now  that 
what  men  deemed  the  usurpation  of  Andros  was  over, 
the  charter  of  Massachusetts  was  gone  forever.  For  a 
moment,  in  January,  1690,  it  seemed  likely  that  Mather 
would  secure  its  restoration  by  act  of  Parliament.  But 
William  proved  at  first  almost  as  intractable  as  his  Stuart 
predecessor,  and  it  was  soon  evident  that  a  full  restoration 
of  the  ancient  privileges  of  Massachusetts  was  out  of  the 
question.  The  old  thought  of  a  theocratic  state,  in  which 
one  form  of  worship  should  be  allowed,  where  the  rulers 
should  be  Christian  men,  and  in  which  a  self-governing 
class  of  the  population  should  administer  all  affairs  in 
a  spirit  of  semi-independence,  was  impossible  of  revival, 
partly  because  New  England  had  in  a  measure  grown 
away  from  it,  but  chiefly  because  William,  like  James, 
wished  to  hold  the  prosperous  colony  closely  under  his 
administration. 

But  though  the  Massachusetts  of  the  fathers  which 
Mather  loved  was  not  to  be  reproduced,  Mather  rescued 
much  that  was  dear  to  the  New  England  Puritan.  He  pre- 
vented the  annexation  of  Plymouth  Colony  to  New  York, 
and  secured  its  incorporation  with  Massachusetts,  thus 
honorably  and  naturally  terminating  the  separate  existence 
of  the  Pilgrim  commonwealth,  the  independence  of  which 
could  not  longer  be  maintained.  He  obtained  a  new 
charter  for  Massachusetts  in  1691,  in  spite  of  the  opposi- 


196  THE    CONGREGATION ALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

tion  of  the  agents  whom  the  colony  had  associated  with 
liim  and  who  impracticably  held  for  the  old  charter  or 
nothing.  This  charter  was,  indeed,  distasteful  to  Mather 
in  its  limitations ;  it  reserved  to  the  king  the  appointment 
of  the  highest  offices  of  government,  and  a  right  to  reject 
obnoxious  laws.  It  swept  away  all  ecclesiastical  tests  for 
the  franchise,  even  such  indirect  and  partial  tests  as  had 
continued  since  1664;  it  granted  freedom  of  worship  to 
Protestants  of  all  shades.  But  it  left  to  Massachusetts  a 
legislature  the  Lower  House  of  which  was  directly  chosen 
by  the  people,  and  in  which  the  Upper  House  was  still 
measurably  under  the  control  of  the  popular  representa- 
tives,— a  legislature,  too,  which  held  the  purse,  and  hence 
had  a  potent  means  of  control  over  all  branches  of  the 
government.  The  old  local  governments  of  the  towns 
were  left  undisturbed ;  and  this,  with  the  power  of  taxa- 
tion which  was  in  the  hands  of  the  legislature,  insured 
the  ascendency  of  the  form  of  ecclesiastical  polity  which 
had  heretofore  been  dominant  in  New  England.  An  ex- 
press provision,  confirming  all  grants  made  by  the  General 
Court  in  time  past,  secured  to  individuals  and  to  churches 
the  possession  of  their  lands,  and  the  maintenance  as  far 
as  possible  of  the  old  order  of  affairs.  Certainly  Congre- 
gationalism owed  much  to  the  influences  that  preserved 
its  essential  features  unfettered  by  the  English  Govern- 
ment at  the  conclusion  of  this  momentous  political  change. 
Such  a  profound  disturbance  of  public  thought  as  oc- 
curred all  over  New  England  during  the  Andros  episode 
gave  occasion,  as  such  events  customarily  do,  to  move- 
ments of  more  or  less  intensity  in  other  directions  than 
merely  political.  It  would  be  unwarranted  to  say  that 
the  grim  tragedy  of  Salem  witchcraft  was  caused  by  this 
state  of  the  public  mind.  New  England,  like  Old  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,  firmly  believed   in  the   possibility  of 


SALEM    WITCHCRAFT.  .  197 

witchcraft ;  and  the  laws  under  which  executions  took 
place  in  the  mother-country  as  late  as  1712,  and  which 
were  not  repealed  till  1736,  had  their  counterparts  in 
these  colonies,  where  an  occasional  victim  had  been  put 
to  death  by  legal  process  in  Massachusetts  and  Connec- 
ticut. But  no  New  England  community  had  thus  far  been 
crazed  with  excitement,  as  Salem  now  was ;  and  the  ex- 
cessive violence  of  this  mental  epidemic  may  in  this  case 
be  justly  attributed  to  the  fevered  state  of  the  public 
mind.  Fortunately  the  outbreak  was  local  and  its  dura- 
tion brief.  Beginning  with  the  strange  actions  of  children 
in  the  household  of  Rew  Samuel  Parris,  of  Salem  village, 
now  Danvers,  Mass.,  in  February,  1692,  it  chiefly  involved 
Salem  and  Andover,  and  before  the  executions  ceased, 
in  September,  1692,  nineteen  men  and  women  had  been 
hanged,  and  one  pressed  to  death  in  accordance  with  the 
barbarous  English  penalty  for  refusal  to  plead.  All  this 
was  done  under  a  special  judicial  commission  appointed  by 
the  new  royal  governor,  Sir  William  Phips,  himself,  like 
the  members  of  the  commission,  of  New  England  birth ; 
and  the  habit  of  mind  by  which  it  had  been  made  possible 
had  been  fostered  by  the  teachings  of  the  two  Mathers, 
especially  of  Cotton  Mather.  But  it  is  illustrative  of  the 
good  sense  fundamental  to  the  New  England  character 
that  the  excitement  passed  by  almost  as  quickly  as  it 
arose  ;  and  though  belief  in  witchcraft  did  not  immediately 
die  out,  men  speedily  felt  that  there  had  been  no  proper 
sifting  of  evidence,  and  it  is  to  their  credit  that  some  of 
the  chief  actors  in  these  scenes,  such  as  the  high-minded 
Samuel  Sewall  of  the  judicial  commission,  and  some  of 
the  jurymen  themselves,  publicly  acknowledged  that  they 
had  been  in  error  and  entreated  forgiveness.  Indeed,  the 
government  of  the  province,  in  appointing  a  fast-day  in 
January,  1696,  though   maintaining  the  satanic  origin  of 


198  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

the  tragedy,  prayed  the  divine  forgiveness  for  "  whatever 
mistakes  .  .  .  had  been  fallen  into  "  ;  and  at  a  later  time, 
171 1,  gave  pecuniary  compensation  to  the  heirs  of  the 
victims.  When  Cotton  Mather  believed  that  he  had  dis- 
covered a  case  of  demoniac  possession  in  Boston  a  year 
after  the  Salem  executions,  his  views  were  combated  by 
Robert  Calef,  a  merchant  of  that  place  ;  and  this  discussion 
led  to  an  elaborate  criticism  of  the  transactions  of  1692 
and  of  those  prominent  in  them,  issued  by  Calef  in  1700. 
Though  popular  trust  in  the  reality  of  satanic  compacts 
continued  in  New  England,  as  in  other  countries,  into  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  Salem  executions  ended  the  inflic- 
tion of  death  for  this  widespread  delusion,  and  it  is  not 
without  significance,  as  illustrative  of  the  comparative  mild- 
ness of  New  England  punishment,  that  the  Salem  witches 
were  hanged,  while  in  Scotland  these  miserable  creatures 
were  burned  as  late  as  1722. 

To  turn  from  a  grim  outburst  of  popular  delusion  to 
the  peaceful  establishment  of  a  new  agency  for  the  expres- 
sion of  Congregational  fellowship  is  an  abrupt  transition, 
but  the  disturbed  years  of  waiting  between  the  downfall 
of  the  government  of  Andros  and  the  grant  of  the  new 
Massachusetts  charter  saw  the  beginnings  of  permanent 
Ministerial  Associations.  There  had  been  meetings  of  the 
ministry  of  the  scattered  settlements  as  early  as  1633, 
and  these  voluntary  gatherings  had  continued  for  some 
years ;  but  fears  lest  they  should  result  in  a  Presbytery,  it 
would  appear,  led  to  their  abandonment  not  far  from  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century.  But  the  year  1686 
saw  the  addition  to  the  ranks  of  the  New  England  ministry 
of  Rev.  Charles  Morton,  a  prominent  Dissenter,  who  had 
made  his  English  home  a  theological  seminary  even  under 
the  restored  monarchy  of  Charles  II.,  and  who  was  settled, 
speedily  after  his  arrival,  over  the  church  at  Charlestowii, 


MINISTERIAL  ASSOCIATIONS.  1 99 

Mass.  Morton  had  been  a  member  of  a  Ministerial  Asso- 
ciation at  Bodmin,  Cornwall,  in  the  days  of  the  Common- 
wealth, and  now,  on  October  13,  1690,  an  association, 
having  the  same  rules  as  the  Bodmin  body,  was  formed, 
doubtless  through  his  efforts,  embracing  the  ministers  of 
Boston  and  its  neighbor  towns,  and  meeting  regularly  in 
the  college  building  at  Cambridge.  It  was  a  purely  vol- 
untary, club-like  organization,  having  for  its  aim  "  to  de- 
bate any  matter  referring  to  ourselves,"  and  "  to  hear  and 
consider  any  cases  that  shall  be  proposed  unto  us,  from 
churches  or  private  persons."  Such  an  institution  met  a 
real  want;  and  by  1692  two  other  associations,  one  hav- 
ing its  headquarters  at  Salem,  were  in  existence.  By 
1705  they  numbered  five.  From  1690  onward  they  be- 
came a  permanent  feature  of  New  England  Congregation- 
alism, though  their  full  development  did  not  come  till  the 
consociational  movements  of  1705  and  1708  in  Massachu- 
setts and  Connecticut,  to  which  reference  will  speedily  be 
made. 

Another  token  of  the  upheaval  of  public  thought  is  to 
be  seen  in  certain  innovations  on  established  ecclesiastical 
usage  which  made  themselves  felt  in  the  last  decade  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  particularly  at  Boston, — innovations 
in  themselves  of  no  great  importance,  but  which  gave  rise 
to  more  or  less  successful  attempts  to  establish  a  stricter 
and  more  Presbyterian  type  of  Congregational  govern- 
ment. A  group  of  youngerly  men,  connected  with  Har- 
vard College,  were  inclined  toward  change,  and,  as  it 
seemed  to  them,  a  liberalization  of  the  usages  of  earlier 
New  England.  The  most  conspicuous  members  of  this 
party  were  John  Leverett  and  William  Brattle,  who  had 
become  tutors  at  Harvard  in  1685,  and  had  controlled  the 
college  during  Increase  Mather's  absence  in  England, — a 
position  which  Brattle  exchanged   in    1696  for  the  more 


200  THE    CONGREGATIONA LISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

influential  post  of  pastor  of  the  Cambridge  church.  Asso- 
ciated with  Brattle,  and  of  even  greater  prominence  than 
he,  was  his  older  brother  Thomas,  the  college  treasurer; 
and  Ebenezer  Pemberton,  a  tutor  and  later  colleague 
pastor  of  the  "  Old  South  "  Church  of  Boston.  These 
men  desired  the  abandonment  of  public  relations  of  relig- 
ious experience  in  admission  to  church-membership ;  and 
they  wished  that  all  baptized  adults  who  shared  in  a  min- 
ister's support,  whether  in  full  communion  or  not,  should 
have  a  voice  in  his  election.  These  were  the  two  main 
features  of  their  innovations,  but  they  desired  also  the 
baptism  of  all  children  presented  by  any  Christian  sponsor ; 
the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  without  comment,  instead  of 
with  explanation  verse  by  verse,  as  was  the  Puritan  cus- 
tom ;  and  the  liturgical  use  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

The  first  two  of  these  changes  were  opposed  by  Increase 
Mather  with  great  vigor,  and  in  a  way  to  provoke  his  lib- 
eralizing associates  in  the  Harvard  faculty  and  in  Boston. 
The  result  was  the  building  by  Thomas  Brattle  and  his 
associates  of  a  new  meeting-house  at  Boston  in  1698; 
and  an  invitation  by  its  builders  and  others  to  Rev.  Benja- 
min Colman,  a  Harvard  graduate  of  1692,  then  in  Eng- 
land, to  become  their  pastor.  The  well-known  conservative 
sympathies  of  the  three  Congregational  churches  existing 
in  Boston  induced  Brattle  and  his  friends  to  recommend 
that  Colman  should  procure  ordination  at  the  more  friendly 
hands  of  the  London  Presbytery,  and  when  Colman  came 
to  Boston  in  November,  1699,  it  was  as  a  minister  enjoy- 
ing Presbyterian  ordination,  but  of  course  no  minister  in 
the  eyes  of  strenuous  Congregationalists,  who  insisted,  as 
the  fathers  had  done,  that  a  pastor  was  to  be  ordained 
only  by  the  congregation  which  he  served,  and  was  a  min- 
ister only  in  connection  with  a  particular  church.  Hav- 
ing secured  their  pastor,  the  associates  organized  Brattle 


BRATTLE    CHURCH.  20I 

Church  on  December  12,  1699.  All  this  was  done  without 
the  countenance  of  the  other  churches  of  the  colony ;  it 
was  clearly  un- Congregational  when  judged  by  the  stand- 
ards of  American  usage.  It  would  be  thought  grossly 
irregular  at  the  present  time.  And  the  movement  was 
strenuously  opposed  by  the  Mathers,  especially  by  In- 
crease, who  attacked  it  in  his  vigorous  tractate  of  1 700, 
"  The  Order  of  the  Gospel."  But,  in  spite  of  the  Mathers 
and  other  conservatives,  Brattle  Church  won  recognition ; 
and  Increase  Mather  himself  saw  the  control  of  Harvard 
slip  from  his  own  hands  to  those  of  sympathizers  with  the 
innovators  in  1701,  partly  as  a  result  of  this  quarrel,  and 
partly  by  reason  of  political  grudges  and  of  his  own  un- 
willingness to  live  in  Cambridge. 

In  itself  this  Brattle  Church  episode  amounted  to  little. 
Brattle  Church  soon  took  a  place  practically  indistinguish- 
able from  that  occupied  by  the  other  churches  of  Boston ; 
and  its  minister,  Rev.  Benjamin  Colman,  became  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years  more  prominent  for  conservatism 
than  for  any  other  characteristic.  But  its  formation  was 
the  apparent  cause  of  an  attempt  to  secure  a  stricter  eccle- 
siastical government  in  Massachusetts,  which  is  of  great 
importance, — an  attempt  in  which  not  only  the  Mathers, 
but,  curiously  enough,  Benjamin  Colman  and  Ebenezer 
Pemberton,  of  the  sympathizers  with  the  Brattle  Church 
movement,  had  a  part. 

The  first  public  manifestation  of  the  movement  was  in 
the  Ministerial  Convention  of  Massachusetts, — an  annual 
gathering  of  all  the  ministers  of  the  province  at  the  time 
of  the  May  General  Court,  which  had  begun  in  the  in- 
formal "coming  together  of  the  ministers  in  the  earliest  days 
of  the  colony,  and  had  crystallized  sufficiently  by  about 
1680  to  have  a  moderator,  a  dinner,  and  a  sermon.  The 
body  still   has  a  feeble    existence   as   a  joint  meeting  of 


202  THE    CONGREGATIONALISrS.  [Chap.  vi. 

Trinitarian  and  Unitarian  ministers  and  the  custodian  of  a 
fund  for  the  relief  of  the  widows  and  daughters  of  Massa- 
chusetts ministers.  Though  in  no  sense  a  judicial  assem- 
bly, or  one  directly  representative  of  the  churches,  the 
Convention  was  accustomed  to  discuss  the  state  of  religion 
in  the  commonwealth,  and  had  made  suggestions  to  the 
legislature  and  the  churches.  This  Convention  now,  on 
June  I,  1704,  approved  a  circular  letter  to  the  churches, 
signed  by  Samuel  Willard,  of  the  "  Old  South  "  Church  of 
Boston,  Ebenezer  Pemberton,  Benjamin  Colman,  Cotton 
Mather,  and  twenty-two  other  of  the  Massachusetts  min- 
isters who  were  distinctly  and  widely  representative.  It 
urged  more  diligent  pastoral  labors  in  behalf  of  the  young, 
a  general  enforcement  of  discipline,  and  "  that  the  Associa- 
tions of  the  Ministers  in  the  several  Parts  of  the  Country 
may  be  strengthened."  In  the  following  November  this 
vote  was  transmitted  to  the  various  ministers  of  the  prov- 
ince through  the  agency  of  the  Association  meeting  at 
Cambridge,  of  the  formation  of  which,  in  1690,  an  account 
has  already  been  given. 

As  a  result  of  these  appeals,  and  perhaps  of  further  ac- 
tion of  the  Ministers'  Convention  in  1705,  nine  ministers, 
including  Willard,  Pemberton,  and  Cotton  Mather,  came 
together  at  Boston  on  September  1 1,  1705,  as  representa- 
tives of  five  Massachusetts  Ministerial  Associations — ap- 
parently all  that  then  existed  in  the  province — and  in  a 
two- days  session  drew  up  an  elaborate  series  of  Proposals 
essaying  seriously  to  modify  the  type  of  church  govern- 
ment thus  far  characteristic  of  New  England. 

The  plan  involved  two  main  features.  The  first  of  its 
recommendations  was  that  Ministerial  Associations  should 
be  formed  where  not  already  existing,  and  that  pastors 
take  their  advice  in  all  difficult  cases.  A  suggestion  of 
great  importance,  borrowed  from  the  English  "  Heads  of 


THE   PROPOSALS  OF  1705.  203 

Agreement"  of  1691,  which  was  the  basis  of  the  union 
of  London  Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists  effected 
largely  by  Increase  Mather,  was  tliat  ministerial  candidates 
be  examined  and  licensed  by  these  associations.  Here- 
tofore each  church  had  given  whatever  warrant  any  man 
had  to  preach  to  it  simply  by  asking,  formally  or  inform- 
ally, to  hear  him.  But  with  this  recommendation  of  i  705 
the  present  New  England  method  of  ministerial  licensure 
was  introduced.  "Bereaved  churches,"  as  those  without 
ministers  were  called,  were  advised  to  apply  to  the  asso- 
ciations for  candidates.  The  associations  were  further- 
more to  inquire  into  the  state  of  religion,  examine  charges 
brought  against  the  character,  belief,  or  conduct  of  any 
minister  of  their  membership,  and  elect  delegates  to  an 
annual  General  Association  of  the  entire  province. 

The  second  division  of  this  scheme  recommended  that 
the  pastors  connected  with  these  associations  and  dele- 
gates from  the  lay  membership  of  their  churches  should 
constitute  "standing  councils,"  to  "consult,  advise,  and 
determine  all  affairs  that  shall  be  proper  matter  for  the 
consideration  of  an  ecclesiastical  council  within  their  re- 
spective limits."  The  results  of  these  councils  of  "  con- 
sociated  churches"  "are  to  be  looked  upon  as  final  and 
decisive  "  ;  and  in  case  of  refusal  to  accept  the  decision, 
after  the  case  has  been  heard  by  a  second  and  neighboring 
standing  council,  the  churches  represented  in  the  council 
"  are  to  approve,  confirm,  and  ratifie  the  sentence,  and 
with-draw  from  the  communion  of  the  church  that  would 
not  be  healed." 

The  Proposals  here  briefly  outlined  were  transmitted  to 
the  various  associations  by  the  Cambridge-Boston  Asso- 
ciation in  November,  1705,  and  were  approved  by  the 
Ministerial  Convention  at  Boston  on  May  30,  1 706.  But 
though  thus  appro.ved  by  men  representative  of  all  parties 


204  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

in  existent  Massachusetts  Congregationalism  as  its  discus- 
sions had  heretofore  developed,  these  Proposals  were  only 
partially  carried  into  effect.  Associations  were  stimulated, 
a  system  of  ministerial  licensure  was  established ;  but  the 
most  essential  feature  of  the  plan,  the  system  of  standing 
councils,  was  never  put  in  operation  in  Massachusetts. 
The  truth  is  that  the  Proposals  encountered  at  once  a 
considerable  degree  of  opposition,  both  from  ministers  and 
from  their  congregations,  as  inimical  to  Congregational 
liberty.  The  system  which  it  commended,  though  ap- 
proved by  a  majority  of  the  pastors,  encountered  too 
much  hostility  to  be  put  in  full  practice  without  legislative 
support;  and  under  the  new  charter,  with  a  governor, 
Joseph  Dudley,  who  coquetted  with  Episcopacy,  and  a 
legislature  whose  acts  were  subject  to  royal  revisal,  such 
support  was  unattainable. 

These  Massachusetts  Proposals  of  1705,  which  thus 
failed  in  large  part  in  the  commonwealth  of  their  origin, 
were  substantially  adopted  in  Connecticut  three  years 
later.  As  compared  with  Massachusetts,  the  life  of  Con- 
necticut in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  had 
been  peaceful.  Though  Connecticut  troops  had  borne 
their  share  in  Philip's  War,  her  towns  had  been  spared  the 
devastation  that  fell  on  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth ;  the 
government  of  Andros  had  extended  to  the  colony,  but 
the  superior  foresight  of  her  General  Court  had  assured 
to  her  citizens  their  lands,  while  those  of  Massachusetts 
were  in  doubt ;  no  popular  delusion,  like  the  witchcraft 
craze,  had  frenzied  any  of  her  towns ;  her  people  were  a 
homogeneous,  fairly  well-to-do  agricultural  population, 
ruled  by  a  semi-independent  government,  under  a  charter 
even  more  liberal  than  that  which  Massachusetts  had  en- 
joyed before  1684. 

But  if  the  special  trials  of  Massachusetts'  political  and 


CAUSES  OF  FRICTION.  205 

ecclesiastical  life  had  no  full  counterparts  in  the  Connecti- 
cut of  I  700,  the  general  causes  modifying  Congregational 
usage  were  at  work  there  as  in  the  larger  colony.  As 
has  been  already  pointed  out,  the  Congregationalism  of 
the  founders  was  of  the  type  of  Barrowe  rather  than  of 
Browne.  It  recognized  clearly  the  right  of  the  ordinary 
membership  to  elect  their  ministers  and  to  admit  mem- 
bers, it  held  that  no  act  of  discipline  was  valid  unless  with 
the  consent  of  the  church  ;  but  it  placed  the  initiative  in 
the  hands  of  the  officers,  and  practically  limited  the  share 
of  the  brethren  in  ordinary  church  acts  to  assent  to  or 
dissent  from  propositions  presented  by  them.  As  the 
"Cambridge  Platform"  expressed  it:  "Church  govern- 
ment, or  Rule,  is  placed  by  Christ  in  the  officers  of  the 
Church ;  .  .  .  yet  in  case  of  mal-administration,  they  are 
subject  to  the  power  of  the  church;  .  .  .  the  work  & 
duty  of  the  people  is  expressed  in  the  phrase  of  obeying 
their  Elders."  And  one  of  the  duties  laid  on  ministers 
by  the  same  constitution  is  that  of  calling  "  the  church 
together  upon  any  weighty  occasion,  when  the  members 
so  called,  without  just  cause,  may  not  refuse  to  come : 
nor  when  they  are  come,  depart  before  they  are  dismissed  : 
nor  speak  in  the  church,  before  they  have  leave  from  the 
elders :  nor  continue  so  doing,  when  they  require  silence, 
nor  may  they  oppose  nor  contradict  the  judgment  or  sen- 
tence of  the  Elders,  without  sufficient  &  weighty  cause." 

The  authoritative  position  here  given  to  the  ministry 
was  difficult  to  maintain  in  a  country  like  New  England ; 
but  it  became  much  more  arduous  when,  instead  of  a 
pastor,  teacher,  and  one  or  more  ruling  elders,  to  consti- 
tute a  governing  body,  as  in  the  larger  churches  at  the 
first,  the  eldership  was  reduced  to  a  single  minister.  This 
change  from  the  original  custom  was  induced  rather  by 
motives  of  economy  tlian   by  any  alteration  of  theoretic 


206  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

polity,  and  was  deplored  as  already  general  by  the  "  Re- 
forming Synod"  of  1679;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a 
single  pastor  who  attempted  to  exercise  the  extensive 
prerogatives  wielded  originally  by  an  eldership  of  three 
or  four  officers,  was  not  unlikely  to  fall  into  quarrel  with 
his  flock.  Such  disputes  did  occasionally  occur,  and  they 
explain  why  it  was  that  many  in  Connecticut,  even  in  the 
absence  of  special  problems  such  as  disturbed  the  vicinity 
of  Boston,  were  ready  to  look  with  favor  on  a  revisal  of 
the  standards  of  church  government. 

The  first  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a  time 
of  much  activity  in  Connecticut.  In  1701  the  long-cher- 
ished desire  for  "  a  nearer  and  less  expensive  seat  of  learn- 
ing "  than  Harvard  was  carried  into  effect  by  the  organi- 
zation of  Yale  College,  with  ten  of  the  ministers  of  the 
colony  as  its  trustees.  The  meetings  of  these  trustees  at 
once  became  the  most  important  ministerial  gatherings  in 
Connecticut ;  and  as  early  as  March  i  7,  i  703,  those  pres- 
ent at  one  of  these  sessions  sent  forth  a  circular  letter  to 
ascertain  whether  the  approval  of  the  Massachusetts  Con- 
fession of  1680  by  the  legislature  of  the  colony  would  not 
be  agreeable  to  the  ministry  as  a  whole.  The  efforts  of 
the  framers  of  the  Massachusetts  Proposals  of  1 705  also 
were  well  known  to  the  leaders  of  Connecticut,  many  of 
whom  sympathized  with  the  Mathers  and  other  prominent 
Massachusetts  conservatives.  But  the  Connecticut  move- 
ment for  stricter  government  was  greatly  aided  by  the 
election  of  Re\-.  Gurdon  Saltonstall,  of  New  London,  to 
the  governorship  in  December,  1707.  In  May  following, 
and  largely  through  Saltonstall's  influence,  the  court  issued 
the  call  for  the  Saybrook  Synod, — the  last  S3'nod  called 
by  governmental  authority  in  New  England,  except  the 
"  General  Consociation  "  appro\'ed  by  the  Connecticut 
legislature  in  the  excitement  of  the  "Great  Awakening.' 


THE    ''  SAYBROOK  PLATFORM."  207 

By  this  vote  the  legislature  ordered  the  representatives  of 
the  churches  to  come  together  in  the  various  county  towns 
on  June  28,  1708,  there  to  draw  up  tentative  schemes  of 
church  government  and  to  choose  delegates  to  a  general 
assembly  which  should  meet  at  Saybrook,  at  the  Com- 
mencement of  the  infant  college ;  when  the  delegates  to 
this  general  council  should,  in  turn,  prepare  a  form  of 
government,  on  the  basis  of  the  several  county  plans,  for 
submission  to  the  legislature.  This  rather  elaborate  direc- 
tion was  obeyed ;  and  on  September  9,  1 708,  the  Synod 
met  at  Saybrook  with  an  attendance  of  twelve  ministers 
and  four  laymen. 

The  work  of  the  Synod  was  threefold.  It  approved  the 
Confession  of  1680, — itself  a  slight  modification  of  the 
Savoy  revision  of  the  Westminster  symbol, — as  the  doc- 
trinal standard ;  and  the  someu^hat  divergent  views  of  its 
■members  regarding  the  proper  strenuousness  of  church 
government  were  met  by  the  adoption  of  the  rather  liberal 
and  loose-knitted  "Heads  of  Agreement"  of  1691,  and 
fifteen  close-compacted  Articles,  the  "  Saybrook  Plat- 
form "  proper.  These  famous  Articles,  the  most  important 
and  only  original  part  of  the  Synod's  symbols,  were  based 
essentially  on  the  Massachusetts  Proposals  of  1705,  though 
worked  out  in  more  elaborate  detail.  They  provided  that 
the  churches  should  be  grouped  in  "  consociations "  or 
standing  councils,  one  or  more  such  bodies  in  each  county. 
To  these  "consociations"  all  cases  of  discipline  difficult  of 
settlement  within  the  local  church  where  they  originate 
should  be  brought,  and  the  decision  then  rendered  shall 
be  considered  final  save  in  cases  of  great  difficulty  and 
moment,  when  the  next  neighboring  "  consociation " 
should  meet  jointly  with  that  having  original  cognizance 
of  the  case.  The  help  of  the  "  consociation  "  should  be 
sought  by  each  church  belonging  to  it  "  upon  all  occa- 


208  THE    CONGREGATION ALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

sions  ecclesiasticall,"  which  included,  of  course,  ministerial 
ordinations,  installations,  and  dismissions.  In  a  similar 
way,  all  the  ministers  of  the  colony  were  to  be  distributed 
into  "  associations,"  for  consultation,  ministerial  licensure, 
and  recommendation ;  and  by  their  delegates  an  annual 
"  General  Association "  of  the  whole  colony  should  be 
constituted. 

These  recommendations  were  at  once  approved  by  the 
legislature,  and  were  carried  into  efifect  in  February,  March, 
and  April,  1 709,  when  consociations  and  associations  were 
formed  in  the  several  counties.  In  May  the  first  General 
Association  met,  thus  inaugurating  what  is  now  by  far  the 
oldest  of  the  State  organizations  representative  of  Congre- 
gationalism, except  the  feeble  and  never  very  well  com- 
pacted Massachusetts  Convention.  But  though  adopted 
in  all  parts  of  Connecticut,  the  Saybrook  system  encoun- 
tered considerable  opposition.  While  Hartford  and  New 
London  counties  accepted  the  new  rules  as  they  came 
from  the  Synod,  Fairfield  County  made  them  more  stren- 
uous by  a  Presbyterianizing  interpretation  put  on  record 
when  its  consociation  was  formed,  and  New  Haven  County 
abated  their  strictness  by  the  same  method.  It  is  clear 
that,  unless  backed  by  the  legislature,  they  would  have 
failed  of  adoption  in  Connecticut  as  the  similar  Proposals 
of  1 705  did  in  Massachusetts.  But  in  Connecticut  they 
remained  the  legall}-  recognized  standard  till  1 784,  and 
the  rule  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  churches,  though  with 
ever-decreasing  strictness,  till  after  the  middle  of  the 
present  century. 

The  adoption  of  this  stricter  Congregational  system  in 
Connecticut  and  its  failure  in  Massachusetts  put  the  two 
chief  Puritan  colonies  on  somewhat  divergent  paths,  and 
led  to  certain  minor  difTerences  in  their  types  of  Con- 
gregationalism  which   continue,   though    in    much-abated 


THE    ^' SAYBROOK  platform:'  209 

distinctness,  to  the  present  day.  Under  the  influence  of 
consociationism,  especially  as  the  eighteenth  century  drew 
toward  a  close,  Connecticut's  sympathies  went  out  increas- 
ingly toward  fellowship  with  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  the 
Middle  States.  Massachusetts,  on  the  other  hand,  came 
to  represent  an  increasingly  independent  type  of  Congre- 
gationalism. In  our  own  century  the  two  types  have  once 
more  approximated,  though  each  has  contributed  elements 
to  present  denominational  life. 

This  divergence  of  the  characteristics  of  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut  Congregationalism  was  stimulated  by  a 
keen  satire  upon  the  Proposals  of  1705,  published  in  1710, 
by  Rev.  John  Wise,  pastor  of  a  parish  then  in  Ipswich, 
but  now  known  as  Essex,  Mass.,  under  the  title  of  "The 
Churches  Quarrel  Espoused," — a  work  which  Wise  fol- 
lowed in  I  7 1  7  with  his  "  Vindication  of  the  Government 
of  New  England  Churches."  These  brilliant  little  books 
doubtless  came  too  late  to  have  much  effect  in  bring- 
ing about  the  rejection  of  the  Proposals ;  but  they  stirred 
and  stimulated  Congregational  thought,  and  ultimately  did 
much  to  change  the  Barrowism  of  early  New  England  into 
a  more  democratic  type  of  Congregationalism.  Wise  was 
a  graduate  of  Harvard  of  the  class  of  1673,  who  had  suf- 
fered fine,  suspension  from  the  ministry,  and  imprison- 
ment under  the  government  of  Andros  for  leading  his  town 
in  a  refusal  to  collect  taxes  not  imposed  by  a  representa- 
tive assembly,  thus  being  the  first  con.spicuous  American 
opponent  of  taxation  without  representation.  His  abili- 
ties as  a  leader  of  men  in  other  experiences  than  those  of  a 
parish  were  attested  also  on  a  laborious  campaign  against 
Canada,  in  which  he  served  as  chaplain  ;  and  his  enlighten- 
ment by  his  opposition  to  the  witchcraft  delusion  of  1692. 
Altogether,  Wise  combined  an  intense  love  for  the  New 
England  of  the  fathers   with    a   clear-sighted   perception 


2IO  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

of  the  democratic  tendencies  of  American  life  that  made 
him  unconsciously  prophetic  of  the  future,  while  defending 
from  innovation,  as  he  beHeved,  the  best  features  of  the 
past ;  and  he  clothed  his  work  in  a  literary  form  more 
attractive  than  that  of  any  other  colonial  writer  of  his  age. 
In  his  little  books  of  1710  and  171  7  Wise  seems  to  have 
thought  that  he  was  simply  defending  the  "  Cambridge 
Platform  "  against  the  consociational  movements  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut.  But  he  really  entered,  espe- 
cially in  the  second  of  these  volumes,  on  a  broad  discus- 
sion of  the  fundamental  principles  of  government  in  church 
and  state  alike,  and  his  view  was  far  more  democratic  than 
that  of  the  "  Platform."  Wise  based  his  defense  of  a 
democratic  Congregationalism  not  only  on  the  Bible  and 
on  the  prescriptions  of  the  New  England  fathers  as  he 
understood  them,  but  very  strikingly  and  prophetically 
also  on  natural  law,  declaring  that  "  it  seems  most  agree- 
able with  the  light  of  nature,  that  if  there  be  any  of  the 
regular  government  settled  in  the  church  of  God  it  must 
needs  be  a  Democracy."  "  Power,"  he  asserted,  "is  origi- 
nally in  the  people."  And  Wise  conceived  it  to  be  one  of 
the  chief  merits  of  Congregationalism  that  it  best  illus- 
trates the  principles  of  the  most  valuable  forms  of  civil 
government.  In  his  views  of  civil  society  Wise  showed 
his  agreement  with  the  most  advanced  of  the  European 
publicists  of  his  day,  holding  the  "compact"  theory,  so 
popular  later  in  his  century ;  asserting  that  men  are  "  all 
naturally  free  and  equal,"  that  "civil  government"  is 
"  the  effect  of  human  free-compacts  and  not  of  divine  in- 
stitution "  ;  and  that  "  the  formal  reason  of  government  is 
the  will  of  a  community,  yielded  up  and  surrendered  to 
some  other  subject,  either  one  particular  person  or  more," 
in  order  that  men  "  may  be  secured  against  the  injuries 
they  are  liable  to  from   their  own  kind."     This  govern- 


JOHN   WISE  AND  HIS    THEORIES.  211 

merit  may  take  the  form  of  a  democracy,  an  aristocracy, 
or  a  monarchy.  Of  these  democracy  is  the  oldest  in  the 
civil  world,  it  "  is  a  form  of  government  which  the  light 
of  nature  does  highly  value,  and  often  directs  to  as  most 
agreeable  to  the  just  and  natural  prerogatives  of  human 
beings."  So,  too:  "If  Christ  has  settled  any  form  of 
power  in  his  church  he  has  done  it  for  his  churches  safety, 
and  for  the  benefit  of  every  member:  Then  he  must  needs 
be  presumed  to  have  made  choice  of  that  government  as 
should  least  expose  his  people  to  hazard,  either  from 
fraud,  or  arbitrary  measures  of  particular  men.  And  it  is 
as  plain  as  daylight,  there  is  no  species  of  government  like 
a  democracy  to  attain  this  end." 

These  quotations  from  Wise's  "  Government  of  New 
England  Churches"  of  171 7  show  that  he  presented  a 
new  and  forceful  treatment  of  Congregationalism,  making 
its  claims  no  longer  dependent  on  its  superior  conformity 
to  the  scattered  hints  of  Scripture  alone,  but  basing  its 
merits  also  on  the  broad  principles  of  democracy  which 
were  to  be  the  mainspring  of  so  much  of  American  thought 
and  action.  In  so  doing  he  emphasized  the  democratic 
element  in  Congregationalism  as  no  previous  writer  had 
done.  His  books  were  forces  in  Congregational  thought 
from  their  publication.  Yet  his  presentation  was  so  novel 
and  so  in  advance  of  his  time  that  the  influence  of  these 
tracts  was  not  at  first  wide.  Their  greatest  power  as 
directive  of  public  thought  was  more  than  half  a  century 
after  they  were  first  put  in  print.  In  1772,  when  their 
author  had  been  forty-seven  years  silent  in  death,  their 
real  hour  came.  Then,  in  the  excitement  anticipatory  to 
the  great  struggle  for  political  independence,  Massachusetts 
welcomed  two  editions  of  Wise's  works  in  a  single  year; 
and  the  democratic  principles  which  he  declared  the  essen- 
tials of  Congregationalism,  and  which  a  slowly  increasing 


212  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vi. 

number  had  recognized  since  his  day,  were  the  theories 
which  men  welcomed  in  church  and  state  ahke. 

But  while  Wise  must  be  reckoned  thus  as  one  of  the 
men  to  whom  modern  Congregationalism  is  most  highly 
indebted,  the  Massachusetts  churches  of  his  lifetime  were 
more  under  the  dominance  of  the  views  of  the  Mathers 
than  his  own.  On  May  27,  1725,  just  seven  weeks  after 
Wise  died,  the  Ministers'  Convention,  by  the  pen  of  Cotton 
Mather,  petitioned  the  legislature  of  the  province  to  call  a 
Synod  in  the  old-time  fashion,  to  consider  "  What  are  the 
miscarriages  whereof  we  have  reason  to  think  the  judg- 
ments of  heaven,  upon  us,  call  us  to  be  more  generally 
sensible,  and  what  may  be  the  most  evangelical  and  effect- 
ual expedients  to  put  a  stop  unto  those  or  the  like  mis- 
carriages." The  Upper  House  favored  the  request,  the 
Lower  House  disapproved  at  first,  but  afterward  joined  in 
referring  the  question  to  the  next  session  of  the  court,  and 
this  disposition  met  the  approval  of  William  Dummer,  who, 
as  lieutenant-governor,  was  the  highest  royal  representa- 
tive at  the  time  in  Massachusetts.  But  the  Episcopalians 
of  the  province  were  determined  that  the  Synod  should 
not  take  place,  and  appealed  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  by 
whom  the  English  authorities  were  induced  to  administer 
a  sharp  rebuke  to  Dummer  and  to  forbid  the  meeting,  giv- 
ing as.  their  reason :  "It  is  thought  here  that  the  clergy 
should  not  meet  in  so  public  and  authoritative  a  manner 
without  the  king's  consent  as  head  of  the  church,  and  that 
it  would  be  a  bad  precedent  for  dissenters  here  to  ask  the 
same  privilege,  which,  if  granted,  would  be  a  sort  of  vying 
with  the  established  church.  It  has  also  been  insinuated 
that  this  Synod  would  have  come  to  some  resolutions  to 
the  prejudice  of  the  Church  of  England." 

Thus  by  Episcopal  interference  the  churches  of  Massa- 
chusetts were  made  to  feel  that  their  privileges  under  the 


A    SYNOD  FORBIDDEN.  213 

charter  of  1691  were  not  what  they  had  been  in  the  days 
of  the  founders,  or  what  Connecticut  still  enjoyed.  But 
probably  it  was  well  that  it  was  so.  Congregational  con- 
solidation, the  development  of  fellowship,  had  been  the 
main  characteristic  of  the  seventeenth  century.  That 
development  had  gone  to  semi-Presbyterian  lengths  in 
Connecticut ;  it  had  nearly  reached  the  same  goal  in  Mas- 
sachusetts. It  was  time  to  assert  the  other  element  of 
the  polity,  that  of  local  autonomy ;  and  the  difficulty  of 
calling  Synods  by  government  authority,  the  democratic 
principles  of  Wise,  and  the  political  situation,  all  tended  to 
make  that  assertion,  rather  than  the  further  development 
of  fellowship,  the  characteristic  of  the  next  century  and  a 
quarter. 


CHAPTER   VIL 

EARLY   THEORIES    AND    USAGES. 

The  failure  of  the  attempt  to  secure  the  summons  of  a 
Synod  by  the  Massachusetts  legislature  in  1725  was  the 
concluding  incident  of  the  last  chapter.  Though  not  in 
itself  a  matter  of  great  importance,  it  may  well  serve  as  a 
convenient  terminal  mark  for  the  story  of  early  Congrega- 
tionalism. It  emphasized  the  decline  of  that  intimacy  of 
relationship  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  leaders  which 
had  been  more  and  more  evident  since  the  downfall  of  the 
first  Massachusetts  charter.  The  Synod  itself  was  pro- 
posed to  devise  a  remedy  for  a  state  of  affairs  largely  illus- 
trative of  the  passing  away  of  the  ideals  of  earlier  New 
England.  Already  another  theory  of  the  claims  of  Con- 
gregational polity  than  that  maintained  by  the  founders 
had  been  propounded  by  Wise ;  and  if  one  advances  be- 
yond this  date  there  speedily  appear  new  religious  move- 
ments, new  discussions,  and  different  problems  from  those 
which  had  engrossed  Congregational  thought  heretofore. 
It  is  proper,  therefore,  to  pause  in  the  narrative  at  this 
point  and  to  glance  at  the  characteristic  features  of  the 
institution  with  which  we  have  had  to  do — the  Congrega- 
tional Church — as  those  features  appeared  in  this  impor- 
tant division  of  Congregational  history  which  has  been 
under  review. 

As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  first  century  and 
a  half  of  Congregationalism  was  not  a  period  of  theologic 
contention.  Not  that  doctrinal  themes  were  not  presented 
in  sermons  and  in  lectures  with  the  utmost  fullness.      In 

214 


LITTLE  DOCTRINAL   DISCUSSION.  21  5 

no  country  were  the  intellectual  principles  of  the  Christian 
faith  more  laboriously  and  persistently  set  forth  than  in 
New  England.  But  till  well  into  the  eighteenth  century, 
save  in  one  or  two  isolated  instances,  no  disposition  was 
manifested  to  depart  from  the  strenuous  type  of  Calvinism 
which  the  early  English  Congregationalists  had  defended 
and  which  had  been  characteristic  of  the  Puritans  of  the 
reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I.  In  reading  the  sermons 
of  Hooker  or  Cotton  or  Shepard,  marked  by  a  clear  asser- 
tion of  election,  of  the  absolute  powerlessness  of  man  by 
nature  in  conversion,  of  the  necessity  of  entire  submission 
to  the  divine  will,  and  of  the  infinite  blessedness  and  com- 
fort which  flow  to  all  who  receive  the  justifying  and  pre- 
serving grace  of  God, — even  more  characterized  by  a 
strenuous  and  reiterated  insistence  on  the  necessity  of 
personal  godliness  of  life  and  a  lofty  conception  of  the 
requirements  and  the  privileges  of  the  Christian  calling, — 
one  is  reading  discourses  of  the  same  type  as  those  of 
Whitaker  or  Perkins  or  Preston,  the  Puritan  lights  of  the 
University  of  Cambridge ;  and  these  characteristics  con- 
tinued the  uniform  and  practically  unquestioned  marks  of 
New  England  preaching  for  over  a  century  after  the  settle- 
ments were  begun.     , 

A  few  ripples  did,  indeed,  disturb  this  doctrinal  calm. 
The  Hutchinsonian  dispute,  in  the  early  days  of  Massa- 
chusetts, has  already  been  described ;  the  Baptist  and 
Quaker  beginnings  have  been  glanced  at ;  but  none  of 
these  episodes  affected  any  considerable  portion  of  New 
England  or  modified  the  type  of  preaching  there  exhibited. 
Still  less  influential  was  the  publication  of  a  theory  of  the 
atonement  at  variance  with  the  Anselmic  view  then  prev- 
alent in  all  Puritan  thinking,  by  William  Pynchon,  the 
founder  of  Springfield,  Mass.,  and  one  of  the  few  laymen 
to  contribute  to  theologic   literature    during  the  colonial 


2l6  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

period  of  New  England.  His  book  of  1650,  the  "Meri- 
torious Price  of  our  Redemption,"  denied  that  Clirist  suf- 
fered the  torments  of  hell,  or  was  under  the  wrath  of  God, 
or  paid  the  exact  penalty  of  our  sins  divinely  imputed  to 
him ;  and  affirmed  that  the  price  of  our  salvation  was  his 
mediatorial  obedience — the  voluntary  offering  of  himself — 
which  disposed  the  Father  to  forgive  sin.  Thoughts  sim- 
ilar to  some  of  these  were  to  appear  in  a  modified  form  in 
that  conception  of  Christ's  work  which  the  younger  Jona- 
than Edwards  was  so  successfully  to  advocate  in  the  clos- 
ing years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  that  it  has  become 
known  as  the  "  New  England  theory  "  ;  but  New  England 
was  not  ripe  for  such  speculations  in  1650. 

The  Massachusetts  legislature  ordered  Pynchon's  book 
to  be  burned,  and  appointed  Rev.  John  Norton,  of  Ips- 
wich, to  make  reply.  Pynchon  was  not  convinced,  but  he 
founded  no  new  school  of  thinking,  and  his  pamphlet  led 
to  no  permanent  results.  Indeed,  so  uniform  was  the  pat- 
tern of  New  England  belief  that  Cotton  Mather  was  able 
to  say  in  his  "Ratio  Disciplinae,"  published  in  1726:  "There 
is  no  need  of  Reporting  what  is  the  Faith  professed  by  the 
Churches  in  New  England;  For  every  one  knows.  That 
they  perfectly  adhere  to  the  Confession  of  Faith,  published 
by  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster,  and  afterwards 
renewed  by  the  Synod  at  the  Savoy  :  And  received  by 
the  Renowned  Kirk  of  Scotland.  The  Doctrinal  Articles 
of  the  Church  of  England,  also,  are  more  universally  held 
and  preached  in  the  Churches  of  New  England,  than  in 
any  Nation;  and  far  more  than  in  our  own  [England].  I 
cannot  learn.  That  among  all  the  Pastors  of  Two  Hundred 
Churches,  there  is  one  Arminian :  much  less  an  Arian,  or 
a  Gentihst.  ...  It  is  well  known,  that  the  Points  peculiar 
to  the  Churches  of  New  England,  are  those  of  their  Church 
Discipline." 


THEORY  OF   THE    CHURCH.  2  I 'J 

It  is  when  we  turn  to  the  polity  of  Congregationalism 
that  we  see  that  which  was  most  peculiar  to  our  churches 
in  their  first  century  and  a  half.  As  defined  by  the  "  Cam- 
bridge Platform,"  and  as  held  from  the  beginnings  of  Con- 
gregationalism, "  a  Congregational  Church,  is  by  the  in- 
stitution of  Christ  a  part  of  the  Mihtant-visible-church, 
consisting  of  a  company  of  Saints  by  calling,  united  into  one 
body,  by  a  holy  covenant,  for  the  publick  worship  of  God, 
&  the  mutuall  edification  one  of  another,  in  the  Fellowship 
of  the  Lord  lesus."  The  "  saints  by  calling,"  who  are  the 
members  of  a  church,  are  :  "  Such,  as  haue  not  only  attained 
the  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  Religion,  &  are  free  from 
gros  &  open  scandals,  but  also  do  together  with  the  profes- 
sion of  their  faith  &  Repentance,  walk  in  blameles  obe- 
dience to  the  word,"  with  their  children ;  in  number  not 
greater  than  "  may  ordinarily  meet  together  conveniently 
in  one  place :  nor  ordinarily  fewer,  then  may  conveniently 
carry  on  Church- work."  The  covenant  which  joins  a  com- 
pany of  otherwise  disconnected  Christians  into  a  church, 
and  which  is  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  Congre- 
gational system,  is  a  "  voluntary  agreement "  "  wherby 
they  give  up  themselves  unto  the  Lord,  to  the  observing 
of  the  ordinances  of  Christ  together  in  the  same  society." 
This  covenant  is  best  when  it  is  "express  &  plain";  but 
the  Puritan  Congregationalists  of  New  England,  though 
they  firmly  denied  the  proper  existence  of  any  organized 
churches  except  Congregational  bodies,  were  far  from 
believing  with  the  English  Separatists  that  the  English 
parish  churches  were  antichristian.  On  the  contrary,  the 
"  Cambridge  Platform  "  asserted  that  a  verbal  covenant 
was  not  the  only  form  of  the  basal  agreement,  for  "  a  com- 
pany of  faithful  persons"  express  such  a  union  "by  their 
constant  practise  in  comming  together  for  the  publick  wor- 
ship of  God,  &  by  their  religious  subjection  unto  the  ordi- 


2l8  THE    CONG  REG  ATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

nances  of  God  "  ;  and  hence  they  held  that  though  there 
was  no  true  Church  of  England,  there  were  many  true 
churches  in  the  bounds  of  the  Establishment. 

A  church  was  organized  in  early  New  England  by  the 
entrance  into  formal  covenant  one  with  another  of  those 
inhabitants  of  a  definite  territory,  a  township  or  a  division 
of  a  township,  who  were  "  satisfied  of  one  another's  faith 
&  repentance."  From  1636  onward  in  Massachusetts  and 
from  1658  in  Connecticut  the  consent  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment and  the  approval  of  other  churches  was  a  prerequisite 
to  this  act, — a  consent  which  was  based  not  only  on  the 
type  of  religious  character  exhibited,  but  on  the  ability 
of  the  petitioners  to  support  the  necessary  expenses  of 
divine  worship.  In  general  these  fundamental  covenants 
were  remarkably  free  from  doctrinal  expression,  being 
usually  a  simple  promise  to  walk  in  fidelity  to  the  divine 
commandments  and  in  Christian  faithfulness  one  to  an- 
other. Nor  was  anything  of  peculiar  sanctity  supposed  to 
lie  in  the  form  of  words  adopted  at  a  church's  beginning. 
Such  covenants  were  renewed,  made  more  explicit  against 
definite  forms  of  prevalent  sin,  or  otherwise  amended,  with 
much  freedom,  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  ecclesiastical  life. 
In  fact,  it  was  widely  the  custom  for  each  new  minister  to 
draught  the  particular  agreement  to  which  he  took  the 
assent  of  candidates  for  church-membership,  without  neces- 
sarily submitting  his  form  of  words  to  the  approval  of  the 
church.  The  essential  matter  was  the  agreement,  not  its 
verbal  expression.  Local  confessions  of  faith  were  to  be 
found  in  a  few  instances  in  early,  though  apparently  not  in 
the  earliest.  New  England,  as  at  Wenham,  Mass.,  by  1644, 
or  Windsor,  Conn.,  in  1647.  A  large  portion  of  the  elab- 
orate local  creeds  of  the  Congregational  churches  of  the 
present  day  had  their  beginnings  in  the  discussions  of  the 
opening  years  of  the  present  century. 


COVENANTS  AND    CONFESSIONS.  219 

Yet  it  would  be  a  serious  error  to  conclude  that  the 
churches  of  New  England  had  no  doctrinal  tests  for  mem- 
bership. The  absence  of  written  local  creeds  was  chiefly 
due  to  the  prevalent  doctrinal  uniformity  of  the  first  cent- 
ury of  New  England  life.  But  the  ordinary  requirements 
for  admission  to  membership  show  that  the  tests  applied 
were  severe.  The  candidates  for  fellowship  made  their 
desire  known  to  the  officers  of  the  church.  They  were 
then  obliged  to  submit  to  an  examination  by  the  teaching 
and  ruling  elders,  usually  in  private,  though  frequently 
in  the  presence  of  the  more  prominent  members  of  the 
flock,  as  Cotton  declares,  both  as  to  "  their  knowledge  in 
the  principles  of  religion,  &  of  their  experience  in  the  wayes 
of  grace,  and  of  their  godly  conversation  amongst  men." 
The  "Cambridge  Platform"  indeed  directs  that  "the  weak- 
est measure  of  faith  is  to  be  accepted,"  and  that  "  severity 
of  examination  is  to  be  avoyded  "  ;  but  the  evidence  seems 
clear  that  this  threefold  test  implied  not  only  a  searching 
inquiry  into  the  candidates'  experience  and  reputation,  but 
into  their  acquaintance  with  the  principles  of  Christian  doc- 
trine. Once  approved  by  the  officers,  the  candidates  were 
propounded  to  the  church  that  objection  to  their  ad- 
mission might,  if  necessary,  be  made.  No  difficulties  hav- 
ing been  raised,  the  candidates  would  appear  before  the 
church  as  a  whole,  unless  excessively  timid,  and  make  a 
"  relation  "  of  their  beliefs  and  religious  experiences.  With 
men  this  usually  took  the  form  of  oral  statements  of  some 
length,  or  question  and  answer;  in  the  case  of  women 
written  confessions  were  usually  read  by  a  church  officer. 
But,  however  presented,  the  most  essential  portion  of  the 
transaction  was  the  act  of  the  church  itself,  which,  after 
hearing  these  statements,  voted  on  the  candidates'  admis- 
sion. If  accepted,  they  assented  to  the  covenant  and  were 
accounted  of  the  church. 


220  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

This  early  strenuousness,  which  kept  probably  a  major- 
ity of  the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies  out  of  the  churches 
even  in  the  first  days  of  the  settlements,  was  relaxed  as 
the  seventeenth  century  wore  on.  When  the  Half-Way 
Covenant  had  become  the  rule,  those  baptized  under  it,  as 
already  of  the  church,  were  admitted  to  "  full  communion  " 
in  some  places,  on  the  strength  of  a  private  examination 
by  the  officers,  without  the  elaborate  propounding  and 
relations  still  required  of  those  who  had  had  no  parental 
connection  with  the  churches.  But  these  public  relations 
were  felt  by  many  to  be  a  formidable  matter, — their  aban- 
donment was  one  of  the  innovations  insisted  upon  by 
Brattle  Church  in  1699, — and  though  they  still  continued 
in  extensive  use  at  the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  were  favored  by  conservatives 
like  the  Mathers,  private  examination  by  the  ministers 
more  and  more  took  the  place  of  the  public  ordeal,  espe- 
cially in  the  larger  towns. 

The  organization  of  a  church  was  followed  by  its  choice 
of  officers.  As  with  the  English  Separatists,  these  officers 
were  theoretically  held  to  be  pastor,  teacher,  elders,  dea- 
cons, and  widows.  But  actual  New  England  practice  un- 
derwent a  very  rapid  change  in  the  direction  of  simplicity 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  so  that  by  1700  few  New 
England  churches  had  any  other  officers  than  pastor  and 
deacons.  These  officers  were  at  first  chosen  by  the  votes 
of  all  the  adult  male  members  of  the  church  which  they 
were  to  serve,  and  members  in  which  they  were  required 
to  be, — the  deacons  continued  to  be  so  selected  always. 
But  certain  changes,  due  primarily  to  the  share  of  all  the 
inhabitants  of  a  township  or  precinct  in  a  minister's  support, 
of  which  more  will  be  said  later  in  this  chapter,  led  to  the 
recognition,  toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
of  the  right  of  the  legal  voters  of  a  town  or  parish,  irre- 


CHOICE    OF  OFFICERS.  221 

spective  of  their  church-membership,  to  a  cooperant  part 
in  a  minister's  selection,  thus  estabhshing  the  dual  organ- 
ization of  New  England  Congregationalism,  the  church 
arid  the  "  society,"  or  parish,  as  joint  factors  in  the  choice 
and  settlement  of  a  minister.  As  long  as  all  legal  voters 
in  Massachusetts,  or  the  overwhelming  portion  of  the  en- 
franchised in  Connecticut,  were  church-members,  the  provi- 
sion of  a  minister's  support  or  the  erection  of  a  meeting- 
house by  town  authorities  was  the  act  of  substantially  the 
same  persons  who  as  church-members  had  the  selection 
of  the  minister.  But  the  growth  into  political  prominence 
of  those  who  were  not  of  the  churches  altered  the  situation. 
In  spite  of  the  declaration  of  the  Massachusetts  court  in 
1668  that  none  but  members  in  "  full  communion  "  should 
join  in  a  minister's  election,  exceptions  occurred  at  Salem 
as  early  as  1672  and  at  Dedham  in  1685.  In  1666  the 
Connecticut  court  asked  the  ministers  to  give  advice 
"  whether  it  doth  not  belong  to  ye  body  of  a  Towne  col- 
lectively, taken  joyntly,  to  call  him  to  be  their  minister 
whom  the  Church  shal  choose  to  be  their  officer?"  but 
nothing  came  of  the  inquiry  at  the  time.  Massachusetts 
statutes  of  1692-93  directed  that  the  church  should  select 
the  minister,  and  that  the  choice  should  then  be  submitted 
to  the  inhabitants,  both  church-members  and  non-members, 
for  approval ;  if  approved  by  a  majority,  the  tax-payers  of 
the  town  or  parish  should  be  bound  to  provide  his  support. 
In  cases  of  disagreement  a  Massachusetts  law  of  1695 
declared  that  a  council  of  neighboring  churches  should 
decide ;  but  the  law  practically  necessitated  a  concurrence 
of  communicants  and  tax-payers  in  ministerial  settlement. 
A  law  of  I  708  in  Connecticut  gave  legal  sanction  to  a  sim- 
ilar system  ;  and  in  both  colonies  these  statutes  were  but 
expressions  of  the  sentiment  that  there  should  be  no  taxa- 
tion without  representation.   Indeed,  in  this  matter  Connec- 


222  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

ticut  practice  in  the  latter  part  of  the  period  under  review 
allowed  the  parish  in  many  instances  larger  influence  than 
it  obtained  in  Massachusetts.  New  settlements  in  Con- 
necticut, and  parish  districts  of  older  settlements  in  which 
churches  were  not  yet  formed,  usually  selected  a  minister  and 
contracted  for  his  salary  before,  in  some  instances  a  number 
of  years  before,  a  church  was  organized.  Having  thus  taken 
the  initiative  at  the  beginning,  the  society  sometimes  kept  it 
after  the  organization  of  a  church,  and  called  the  minister, 
leaving  to  the  church  a  confirmatory  or  rejecting  power. 
In  eastern  Connecticut,  especially  New  London  County, 
this  uncongregational  outgrowth  of  early  colonial  condi- 
tions continued  in  force  throughout  the  colonial  period. 
This  joint  action  of  church  and  society  in  ministerial  selec- 
tion led  to  the  theory,  adjudged  to  be  the  law  of  Massachu- 
setts in  the  Dedham  case  of  1820,  that  a  church  has  no  legal 
existence  save  in  "  connection  with  some  regularly  consti- 
tuted society," — a  legal  interpretation  which  has  been  much 
disputed,  and  which  has  been  practically  voided  within  the 
last  few  years  by  laws  in  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and 
other  New  England  States  allowing  the  incorporation  of  a 
church  without  the  appendage  of  a  society.  But  this  union 
of  church  and  society,  the  one  having  to  do  with  the  spirit- 
ual and  the  other  with  the  secular  concerns  of  ecclesiastical 
life,  still  continues  the  almost  universal  rule  among  the 
churches  of  New  England  even  in  these  days  of  voluntary- 
ism, while  outside  of  New  England  it  has  never  very  ex- 
tensively obtained. 

Election  to  office  was  followed  by  ordination  in  the  case 
of  all  officers  in  early  Congregationalism;  though  at  the  close 
of  the  first  century  on  American  soil,  the  primitive  custom 
had  become  so  modified  that  ordination  of  deacons  was  fall- 
ing into  disuse,  and  reimposition  of  hands  upon  ministers 
who  had  held  previous  pastoral  charge  was  already  aban- 


ORDINATION  OF   OFFICERS.  223 

doned  for  the  ceremony  of  installation.  In  the  undeveloped 
and  somewhat  tentative  state  of  Congregational  fellow- 
ship during  the  few  years  which  immediately  succeeded  the 
arrival  of  the  Puritans,  as  in  the  Congregational  churches 
of  England  and  of  the  Dutch  exile,  ordination  was  accom- 
plished by  the  church  which  the  minister  was  to  serve ; 
and  the  establishment  of  the  pastoral  relation  was  effected 
without  the  advice  of  other  churches.  But  from  the  time 
that  Governor  Bradford  went  to  Salem  in  1629  to  extend 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship  to  the  newly  ordained  Skelton 
and  Higginson  it  became  increasingly  the  custom  for  sister 
churches  to  recognize  the  new  relation,  and  soon  to  advise 
in  it,  so  that  when  the  church  at  Watertown  ordained  Rev. 
John  Knowles  in  1640  without  "giving  notice  thereof  to 
the  neighboring  churches,  nor  to  the  magistrates,"  Win- 
throp  declares  that  they  differed  "  from  the  practice  of  the 
other  churches."  During  the  early  part  of  the  first  century 
of  our  churches  on  American  soil  opinion  as  to  the  proper 
persons  by  whom  ministerial  ordination  was  to  be  performed 
underwent  a  rapid  change.  At  the  beginning,  where  a 
church  had  no  officers,  as  at  Salem  in  1629,  ordination 
was  at  the  hands  of  "  3.  or  4.  of  ye  gravest  members  of  ye 
church,"  or  where  a  church  had  officers,  as  at  Boston,  in 
1633,  when  Cotton  was  added  to  the  ministerial  equip- 
ment, by  the  existing  pastor,  teacher,  or  ruling  elders. 
But  as  the  fellowship  of  sister  churches  was  increasingly 
expressed  by  the  presence  and  advice  of  their  representa- 
tives in  ministerial  ordination,  it  became  increasingly  the 
custom  to  call  upon  ministers  of  other  churches  to  lay  con- 
secrating hands  upon  the  three  classes  of  church  officers 
mcluded  under  the  title  of  "  elders,"  the  pastor,  teacher, 
and  ruling  elder.  As  far  as  the  writer  is  aware,  the  ordi- 
nation of  deacons,  when  practiced,  always  remained  the 
work  of  the  church  which  chose  them  to  office.     This  tran- 


224  ^-^^    CONGKEGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  vii, 

sitional  stage  in  the  ordination  of  "  elders  "  is  illustrated  in 
the  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  of  1648,  which  inclines  toward 
the  older  method  of  consecration,  but  admits  that  "  in  such 
Churches  where  there  are  no  Elders,  &  the  Church  so  de- 
sire, wee  see  not  why  Imposition  of  hands  may  not  be  per- 
formed by  the  Elders  of  other  Churches."  But  the  newer 
method  made  rapid  progress.  In  spite  of  such  conserva- 
tive examples  as  that  of  the  Salem  church,  which  ordained 
John  Higginson  in  1660  by  the  hands  of  two  deacons  and 
a  brother  in  the  presence  of  a  council  of  neighboring 
churches,  or  of  the  Milford  church  in  ordaining  Roger 
Newton  by  its  ruling  elder,  deacon,  and  a  brother;  in  the 
same  year,  the  system  of  consecration  at  the  hands  of  min- 
isters of  the  vicinage,  gathered  in  council  at  the  request  of 
the  church  which  had  called  the  candidate,  became  speed- 
ily universal. 

Though  Congregationalism  has  always  attached  much 
importance  to  ordination,  it  has  never  attributed  to  this 
rite  the  supreme  value  ascribed  to  it  by  some  Protestant 
bodies.  As  defined  in  the  "  Cambridge  Platform,"  it  was 
"  nothing  else,  but  the  solemn  putting  of  a  man  into  his 
place  &  office  in  the  Church  wher-unto  he  had  right  be- 
fore by  election,  being  like  the  installing  of  a  magistrat  in 
the  common  wealth."  Choice  by  a  church  was  the  real 
title  to  ministerial  office,  for  "  ordination  doth  not  consti- 
tute an  officer,  nor  give  him  the  essentials  of  his  office." 
It  followed  that  since  "  church-officers  are  officers  to  one 
church,"  and  not  to  the  churches  as  a  whole,  that  "  hee  that 
is  clearly  loosed  from  his  office-relation  unto  that  church 
wherof  he  was  a  minister,  canot  be  looked  at  as  an  officer, 
nor  perform  any  act  of  Office  in  any  other  church,  vnless 
he  be  again  orderly  called  unto  Office."  The  logically  con- 
sistent position,  thus  stated  in  the  "  Cambridge  Platform," 
which  denied  the  ministerial  character  of  all  persons  not  in 


ORDINATION  OF   OFFICERS.  22$ 

office,  was  accepted  after  a  little  hesitation  even  by  those 
of  the  Puritan  immigrants,  like  the  founders  of  Boston, 
whose  affection  for  the  English  Establishment  was  warm ; 
but  the  feeling  that  one  who  had  once  been  set  apart  to 
the  pastoral  office  was  in  some  way  authorized  to  admin- 
ister the  sacraments,  and  was  possessed  of  an  undefined 
ministerial  character,  even  though  he  had  not  been  for 
years  the  officer  of  any  local  church,  caused  this  stricter 
theory  to  be  generally  laid  aside  in  practice  by  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century. 

Ordination,  or  installation,  was  always  accomplished 
with  ceremony,  the  church  making  the  occasion  one  of 
fasting,  and  the  neighboring  pastors  extending  fellowship. 
As  the  mutual  responsibility  of  churches  was  speedily  de- 
veloped, the  occasion  became  one  for  the  assembling  of  an 
advisory  council,  of  more  or  less  examination  of  the  can- 
didate, and  the  conduct  by  the  minister-elect  of  a  public 
service,  including  prayer  and  a  sermon,  before  the  council 
and  the  congregation  gathered  for  the  occasion.  This  pub- 
lic exhibition  of  the  candidate's  powers,  designed  originally 
to  "  give  some  Discovery,  that  he  understands  the  Work, 
to  which  he  is  now  to  be  Separated,"  yielded  place  grad- 
ually in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the 
prayer  and  preaching  of  "  elder  divines  "  as  "  more  de- 
cent"  ;  though  occasional  instances  long  continued.  After 
the  sermon,  the  moderator  of  the  council  asked  the  church 
to  ratify  its  election  and  the  candidate  to  renew  his  accept- 
ance. Then  followed  the  prayer  of  ordination,  with  impo- 
sition of  hands ;  next  a  charge  intended  to  impress  upon 
the  newly  ordained  minister  the  duties  of  his  office ;  and 
finally  an  extension  of  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  by  one 
of  the  assembled  pastors  in  the  name  of  the  churches.  The 
"  charge  to  the  people,"  now  usual  on  such  occasions,  was 
not  one  of  the  customs  of  early  New  England.      In  instal- 


226  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

lation  the  services  were  the  same,  save  that  a  prayer  com- 
mending the  new  relation  to  the  blessing  of  God  took  the 
place  of  the  prayer  of  ordination  and  its  accompanying 
laying  on  of  hands. 

Church  officers  were  divided  into  two  main  groups  in 
the  classification  of  early  Congregationalism,  "  elders " 
and  "  deacons."  To  the  "  elders,"  constituting  the  "  pres- 
bytery "  of  the  local  church,  the  power  has  been  committed 
by  Christ  "  to  feed  &  rule  the  Church  of  God."  Elders 
in  turn  were  divisible  into  two  subclasses,  embracing  the 
"teaching,"  i.e.,  pastor  and  teacher,  and  the  "ruling" 
eldership ;  and  in  theory  the  diaconate  was  separable  into 
two  groups,  the  "  deacons  "  proper,  and  the  "  widows  "  or 
deaconesses.  The  diaconate  "  being  limited  unto  the  care 
of  the  temporall  good  things  of  the  church,  it  extends  not 
unto  the  attendance  upon,  &  administration  of  the  spirituall 
things  thereof,  as  the  word,  and  Sacraments,  or  the  like." 

As  defined  in  the  "  Cambridge  Platform,"  "  the  office  of 
Pastor  &  Teacher,  appears  to  be  distinct.  The  Pastors 
special  work  is,  to  attend  to  exhortation :  &  therein  to  Ad- 
minister a  word  of  Wisdom :  the  Teacher  is  to  attend  to 
Doctrine,  &  therein  to  Administer  a  word  of  Knowledg: 
&  either  of  them  to  administer  the  Scales  of  that  Covenant 
[i.e.,  sacraments],  unto  the  dispensation  wherof  they  are 
alike  called:  as  also  to  execute  the  Censures."  It  is  easy 
to  see,  however,  that  this  distinction,  though  held  to  be 
of  theoretic  importance,  was  hard  to  maintain  in  practice. 
The  more  prominent  of  the  early  churches,  except  that  at 
Watertown,  which  had  colleague  pastors,  provided  them- 
selves with  the  two  classes  of  "  teaching  elders  "  at  the 
beginning;  but  the  shade  of  difference  was  too  indistinct 
to  be  readily  discriminated,  and  the  expense  of  supporting 
two  such  officers  in  a  small  community  where  one  could 
really  do  the  work  was  a  serious  burden,  so  that  with  the 
death  of  the  first  generation  of  ministers  the  distinction 


DUTIES   OF  OFFICERS.  22  ^ 

speedily  ceased  to  be  observed,  and  the  New  England 
churches  came  prevailingly  to  have  a  single  minister. 
Even  where,  as  at  Boston,  the  wealth  and  populousness 
of  the  place  made  two  ministers  the  rule  throughout  the 
period  with  which  we  have  to  do,  associate  pastorships 
took  the  place  of  the  ancient  pastorate  and  teachership  in 
most  instances  before  the  year  i  700,  though  that  eminent 
conservative,  Increase  Mather,  remained  "teacher"  of  the 
Boston  Second  Church  till  his  death,  in  1723. 

No  office  established  by  Congregationalists  in  their  at- 
tempt to  revive  the  New  Testament  model  was  more  stren- 
uously insisted  upon  by  the  early  New  England  expounders 
of  polity  than  the  ruling  eldership,  and  scarcely  any  was  more 
speedily  abandoned  in  practice.  The  ruling  elder  of  Pres- 
byterianism  is  a  layman ;  but  early  Congregationalism  was 
a  little  uncertain  whether  he  was  a  minister  or  a  layman, 
though  inclined  to  class  him  in  the  ministry.  Thus  Con- 
gregationalism reckoned  him  to  the  "presbytery"  of  the 
local  church,  ordained  him  not  infrequently  at  the  hands 
of  ministers  gathered  in  council  from  other  churches,  and 
paid  him  a  salary  as  it  did  the  teaching  elders ;  but  did 
not  allow  him  to  administer  the  sacraments,  and  permitted 
him  to  preach,  as  Brewster  did  at  Plymouth,  only  when  a 
"  teaching  elder  "  was  wanting.  In  its  exposition  of  Con- 
gregationalism the  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  thus  sets  forth 
his  duties :  "  The  Ruling  Elders  work  is  to  joyn  with  the 
Pastor  &  Teacher  in  those  acts  of  spiritual  Rule  which  are 
distinct  from  the  ministry  of  the  word  &  Sacraments  com- 
mitted to  them,  of  which  sort,  these  be,  as  followeth.  I  to 
open  &  shutt  the  dores  of  Gods  house,  by  the  Admission  of 
members  approved  by  the  church  :  by  Ordination  of  officers 
chosen  by  the  church  :  &  by  excommunication  of  notori- 
ous &  obstinate  offenders  renounced  by  the  church:  &  by 
restoring  of  poenitents,  forgive  by  the  church.  II  To  call 
the  church  together  when  there  is  occasion,  &  seasonably 


228  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

to  dismiss  them  agayn.  Ill  To  prepare  matters  in  pri- 
vate, that  in  pubHck  they  may  be  carried  to  an  end  with 
less  trouble,  &  more  speedy  dispatch.  IV  To  moderate 
the  carriage  of  all  matters  in  the  church  assembled,  as, 
to  propound  matters  to  the  church,  to  Order  the  season 
of  speech  &  silence ;  &  to  pronounce  sentence  according 
to  the  minde  of  Christ,  with  the  consent  of  the  church. 
V  To  be  Guides  &  Leaders  to  the  church,  in  all  matters 
what-soever,  pertaining  to  church  administrations  &  ac- 
tions. VI  To  see  that  none  in  the  church  live  inordinately 
out  of  rank  &  place ;  without  a  calling,  or  Idlely  in  their 
calling.  VII  To  prevent  &  heal  such  offences  in  life,  or  in 
doctrin ;  as  might  corrupt  the  church.  IIX  To  feed  the 
flock  of  God  with  a  word  of  admonition.  IX  And  as 
they  shall  be  sent  for,  to  visit,  &  to  pray  over  their  sick 
brethren.  X  &  at  other  times  as  opportunity  shall  serve 
therunto." 

Here  was  a  series  of  obligations  requiring  peculiar  wis- 
dom and  tact,  some  of  them  very  irksome  in  their  nature, 
sure  to  bring  criticism  upon  the  efficient  ruling  elder,  while 
his  position  had  not  the  popular  strength  which  comes  to 
the  pastor  from  the  administration  of  the  sacraments  and 
the  regular  preaching  of  the  Word.  In  some  of  his  pre- 
rogatives the  ruling  elder  trenched  on  the  powers  of  the 
pastor  and  teacher,  in  others  he  limited  the  rights  of  the 
brethren.  He  was  a  superfluous  officer,  and  Congrega- 
tionalism speedily  found  him  so,  partly  by  reason  of  a 
growing  doubt  whether  more  than  one  kind  of  "  elders  " 
was  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament,  and  even  more  be- 
cause the  office  was  hard  to  fill  and  difficult  to  administer. 
In  a  large  proportion  of  the  churches  of  New  England  the 
ruling  eldership  did  not  survive  the  first  generation  of  the 
settlers.  Some  instances  of  continuance  to  a  much  later 
period  may,  indeed,  be  found.  Thus  the  post  was  occu- 
pied  at   Plymouth  till   the   death  of  Thomas  Faunce,  in 


DUTIES    OF'  OFFICERS.  229 

1746;  the  New  North  Church,  Boston,  had  a  ruhng  elder 
till  1775;  while  the  North  Church,  Salem,  chose  one  as 
late  as  1826;  yet,  in  spite  of  these  rare  examples  of  sur- 
vival, the  statement  of  Cotton  Mather,  published  in  1726, 
is  true,  that  the  office  had  been  "  almost  extinguished  .  .  . 
within  the  half  of  One  Century." 

Turning  now  to  the  distinctly  lay  offices,  we  find  the 
only  one  represented  in  New  England  practice  was  that 
of  the  deacon.  The  duties  of  members  of  this  rank  were 
clearly  set  forth  in  the  "  Cambridge  Platform,"  as  follows: 
"  The  office  and  work  of  the  Deacons  is  to  receive  the  off- 
rings  of  the  church,  gifts  given  to  the  church,  &  to  keep 
the  treasury  of  the  church :  &  therewith  to  serve  the  Ta- 
bles which  the  church  is  to  provide  for:  as  the  Lords 
Table,  the  table  of  the  ministers,  &  of  such  as  are  in  neces- 
sitie,  to  whom  they  are  to  distribute  in  simplicity."  They 
were  to  furnish  the  sacramental  elements,  to  raise  the  sal- 
aries of  the  elders,  and  to  have  the  oversight  of  the  church 
poor.  As  such  they  had  charge  of  the  contributions  of 
the  churches.  Like  the  pastorate,  the  diaconate  has  sur- 
vived to  the  present  day  as  a  characteristic  of  American 
Congregationalism.  But  its  duties  early  became  somewhat 
more  restricted  in  practice  than  the  "  Cambridge  Platform  " 
implies.  The  salaries  of  the  ministers  came  speedily  to 
be  generally  raised  by  taxation ;  church  poor  were  few, 
especially  in  hard-working  rural  New  England ;  and  when 
Cotton  Mather  published  his  "  Ratio  Disciplinae,"  he  could 
say  that  the  reason  why  the  early  custom  of  ordination 
had  been  extensively  abandoned  was  "  because  in  many 
of  our  Churches,  the  Deacons  do  little  other  Work,  than 
provide  the  Elements  for  the  Eucharist ;  and  a  solemn 
Ordination  to  nothing  but  this,  appears  hardly  a  Congru- 
ity."  The  statement  is  still  largely  true,  though  the  more 
democratic  nature  of  modern  Congregationalism,  the  de- 
velopment of  social  meetings  for  prayer  and  conference. 


230  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

and  the  disappearance  of  all  other  ministerial  officers  save 
the  pastor,  have  given  the  deacons  a  place  since  Cotton 
Mather's  time  as  the  minister's  most  efficient  aids  in  the 
conduct  of  the  more  informal  services  and  his  advisers  in 
church  administration, — a  place  not  theirs  in  early  New 
England. 

The  other  lay  office  recognized  by  early  American  Con- 
gregationalism was  that  of  the  deaconess  or  "  widow," 
to  give  "  attendance  to  the  sick,  &  to  give  succour  unto 
them,  &  others  in  the  like  necessities."  But  as  far  as 
New  England  was  concerned  this  office  was  purely  theo- 
retical. No  instances  of  deaconesses  appear  here  in  the 
period  with  which  we  have  to  do ;  perhaps  for  the  rea- 
son given  by  Cotton  in  his  "Way  of  the  Churches,"  that 
"  wee  finde  it  somewhat  rare  to  finde  a  woman  of  so 
great  an  age  (as  the  Apostle  describeth,  to  wit,  of  three- 
score years)  and  withall,  to  be  so  hearty,  and  healthy,  and 
strong,  as  to  be  fit  to  undertake  such  a  service."  The 
London- Amsterdam  church,  which  enjoyed  the  ministry 
of  Johnson  and  Ainsworth,  had  a  deaconess  of  whom 
Governor  Bradford  has  left  a  picturesque  account.  "  She 
honored  her  place,"  he  records,  "and  was  an  ornament  to 
the  congregation.  She  usually  sat  in  a  convenient  place 
in  the  congregation,  with  a  little  birchen  rod  in  her  hand, 
and  kept  little  children  in  great  awe  from  disturbing  the 
congregation.  She  did  frequently  visit  the  sick  and  weak, 
especially  women,  and,  as  there  was  need,  called  out  maids 
and  young  women  to  watch  and  do  them  other  helps  as 
their  necessity  did  require ;  and  if  they  were  poor,  she 
would  gather  relief  for  them  of  those  that  were  able,  or 
acquaint  the  deacons ;  and  she  was  obeyed  as  a  mother  in 
Israel  and  an  officer  of  Christ."  Certainly  many  women 
in  the  churches  of  all  epochs  have  shown  similar  aptitude 
in  smoothing  the  rough  places  of  life  for  their  fellow-mem- 


DUTIES  AND   SUPPORT.  23  I 

bers,  but  it  was  only  at  Amsterdam  that  early  Congrega- 
tionalism put  its  theory  in  this  matter  into  practice  by  the 
appointment  of  a  "  widow."  The  ancient  office,  thus  ex- 
emplified in  a  single  instance,  is  being  revived  with  profit 
by  a  few  churches  of  the  Congregational  order  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  but  the  movement  is  of  recent  origin. 

The  support  of  the  ministry  was  a  matter  of  much  im- 
portance in  earl}'-  American  Congregational  life.  Though 
salaries  were  small  when  judged  by  the  standards  of  the 
present  day,  when  estimated  by  the  style  of  living  in  the 
new-formed  communities,  and  by  the  remuneration  of  civil 
officers,  they  were  fairly  liberal.  Congregational  human 
nature  was  no  more  exempt  from  niggardliness,  at  times, 
than  human  nature  generally ;  but  the  feeling  was  preva- 
lent that  a  minister  should  be  supported  in  a  manner 
worthy  of  the  best  type  of  colonial  life.  It  was  the  theory 
of  Separatist  Congregationalism,  as  expressed,  for  instance, 
in  the  "  Points  of  Difference  "  in  which  the  Amsterdam 
exiles  summarized  their  criticisms  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land in  1603,  that  the  "due  maintenance"  of  ministers 
"  should  be  of  the  free  and  voluntarie  contribution  of  the 
Church."  This  system  the  Pilgrims  brought  with  them  to 
America.  The  Massachusetts  Company  entered  into  defi- 
nite agreements  with  the  first  ministers  that  it  sent  over, 
Bright,  Skelton,  and  Higginson ;  and  the  colonial  court 
voted  on  August  23,  1630,  to  pay  the  salaries  of  Wilson, 
of  Boston,  and  Phillips,  of  Watertown,  "  att  the  comon 
charge."  But  after  1630  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts, 
probably  moved  by  Plymouth  example,  tried  the  voluntary 
plan  till  1638.  At  Boston  the  raising  of  ministerial  sala- 
ries by  general  taxation  never  regained  a  footing,  and  free 
contribution  continued  the  rule  throughout  much  of  the 
colonial  period,  though  modified  there  after  a  time  by  the 
system  of  pew  assessments. 


2  32  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vji. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  early  New 
England  Congregationalists  of  the  Pilgrim  and  the  Puritan 
types  alike  attempted  the  voluntary  system  as  a  matter  of 
Christian  duty.  But  it  was  not  long  before  it  was  found 
that  the  heavy  expenses  for  church  building  and  for  min- 
isterial support  were  met  with  difficulty  in  many  towns. 
'Church  attendance  was  obligatory  in  Massachusetts  by  a 
law  of  March,  1635,  S-^d  the  feeling  of  the  time  was  that 
"  not  only  members  of  Churches,  but  all  that  are  taught  in 
the  Word,  are  to  contribute  unto  him  that  teacheth."  So 
unequal  w^ere  the  gifts  of  different  towns  that  Governor 
Winthrop  raised  the  question  of  ministerial  maintenance 
at  the  Synod  of  1637;  but  the  ministers  there  assembled 
laid  it  aside  lest  their  motives  should  be  thought  merce- 
nary. Yet  the  question  was  a  pressing  one,  and  in  Sep- 
tember, 1638,  the  Massachusetts  General  Court  met  it  by 
a  law  rehearsing  the  frequent  failure  of  those  who  were 
not  church-members  to  bear  a  share  in  church  expenses, 
and  ordering  that  every  "  inhabitant  who  shall  not  volen- 
tarily  contribute,  p'portionably  to  his  ability,  w^h  other 
freemen  of  the  same  towne,  to  all  comon  charges,  as  well 
for  vpholding  the  ordinances  of  the  churches  as  otherwise, 
shalbee  compelled  thereto  by  assessment  &  distres  to  bee 
levied  by  the  cunstable,  or  other  officer  of  the  towne,  as  in 
other  cases."  This  drastic  measure  was  intended  to  apply 
only  to  those  who  failed  to  do  their  duty  voluntarily ;  but 
it  changed  the  basis  of  ministerial  support  to  taxation 
wherever  it  was  not  made  a  dead  letter  by  public  senti- 
ment, as  in  Boston  permanently,  and  for  a  time  at  least  in 
other  towns.  Similar  action  was  speedily  taken  in  other 
colonies.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  commissioners,  after 
the  four  congregational  commonwealths  entered  into  the 
union  of  1643,  was  to  recommend  (September,  1644)  to 
the  courts  of  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and 


iMINISTERIAL   SUPPORT.  233 

New  Haven  the  enactment  of  laws  directing  "  that  euery 
man  voluntaryly  set  dowiie  what  he  is  wiHing  to  allow  to 
that  end  &  vse  [ministerial  support],  and  if  any  man  refuse 
to  pay  a  meet  p'porcon,  that  then  hee  be  rated  by  author- 
yty  in  some  just  &  equall  way,  and  if  after  this  any  man 
wthold  or  delay  due  payment  the  ciuill  power  to  be  exer- 
cised as  in  other  just  debts."  This  suggestion,  which  kept 
the  appearance  of  voluntariness  while  rendering  ministe- 
rial maintenance  really  a  public  tax,  was  made  the  statute 
of  Connecticut  on  October  25,  1644.  Plymouth  colony, 
where  the  old  Separatist  idea  of  free  contribution  was 
deep-rooted,  held  out  yet  longer;  but  on  June  5,  1655,  it 
passed  a  mild  enactment  authorizing  magistrates,  in  the 
case  of  obstinate  neglecters,  "  to  use  such  other  meanes  as 
may  put  them  upon  their  duty."  Two  years  later  this 
law  was  somewhat  strengthened.  The  statutes  of  New 
Haven  colony,  printed  in  1656,  but  most  of  them  enacted 
considerably  earlier,  provided  that  where  negligence  ap- 
peared the  deputies  and  constable  of  each  town  should 
summon  all  inhabitants  and  have  them  pledge  what  they 
would  individually  give  toward  the  minister's  support. 
In  case  of  refusal  or  delay,  or  of  a  niggardly  subscription, 
the  authorities  should  assess  and  collect  a  proper  sum,  if 
necessary,  by  legal  execution.  This  was  essentially  the 
recommendation  of  the  commissioners  of  1644.  Thus, 
within  a  comparatively  few  years  of  the  settlement,  though 
the  principle  of  free  contribution  was  still  recognized  as 
the  ideal,  the  law  collected  the  expenses  of  the  churches 
as  truly  as  it  did  the  maintenance  of  the  state,  and  the 
colonial  records  give  ample  evidence  that  threats  of  legal 
process  against  delinquents  were  often  carried  into  action. 
The  pathway  of  legal  prescription  once  entered  upon 
was  easily  followed  yet  further.  Thus,  in  November,  1647, 
the  Massachusetts  General  Court  authorized  towns  to  levy 


2  34  ^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

taxes  to  supply  their  ministers  with  houses.  In  August, 
1654,  the  same  body  directed  that  the  county  courts,  upon 
complaint,  should  fix  ministers'  salaries  and  collect  them 
by  distraint.  In  Connecticut  even  the  appearance  of  vol- 
untaryism preserved  in  the  statute  of  1644  was  in  time 
abandoned.  An  official  report  to  the  English  authorities 
in  1680  declared  that  ministers'  maintenance  was  "  raysed 
upon  the  people  by  way  of  a  rate,"  i.e.,  a  tax;  and  a  law 
of  May,  1697,  provided  that  salaries  due  from  any  town 
or  society  "  shall  be  levied  and  assessed  on  the  several 
inhabitants  in  each  town  or  plantation  according  to  their 
respective  estates  as  from  time  to  time  they  shall  be  in  the 
gen^l  list,"  and  collected  "  by  such  person  or  persons  as 
the  respective  townes  shall  from  year  to  year  choose  and 
appoint  for  that  end."  Collections  were  to  be  made  by 
the  same  process  of  constraint  as  in  case  of  other  taxes, 
and,  lest  a  people  should  grow  negligent,  they  were  to  be 
made  even  in  case  the  pulpit  was  vacant,  being  then  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  court  of  the  "county  to  be  retained  for 
the  benefit  of  the  ministry  when  once  more  established 
in  the  town.  This  law  was  made  more  explicit  in  Octo- 
ber, 1699;  and  its  provisions  were  the  subject  of  occa- 
sional strengthening  or  modification  during  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Naturally  when  dissenters  from  the  established  religious 
system  of  New  England  arose  they  regarded  as  a  serious 
grievance  the  necessity  laid  on  all  inhabitants  of  the  colo- 
nies, save  those  of  a  few  towns  like  Boston,  to  contribute 
to  the  support  of  the  Congregational  ministry  under  pen- 
alty of  seizure  of  goods.  Agitation  for  exemption  com- 
menced as  soon  as  dissenters  began  to  multiply  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  As  a  result,  in  1727,  Episcopalians  in 
Massachusetts  were  allowed  to  pay  their  assessment  to  a 
clergyman  of  their  faith,  instead  of  to  the  Congregational 


EXEMPTION  OF  DISSENTERS.  235 

pastor,  in  towns  where  there  was  an  Episcopal  minister. 
In  Connecticut,  where  a  law  of  i  708  had  allowed  the  same 
toleration  secured  in  Massachusetts  by  the  new  charter  of 
1 69 1,  an  exemption  law  was  passed  for  the  benefit  of  Epis- 
copalians in  1727,  ordering  that  all  inhabitants  should  be 
taxed  at  the  same  rate  for  the  support  of  the  ministry,  but 
that  wherever  a  resident  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  to  be  found,  the  taxes  of  those  regularly  attend- 
ant on  his  ministrations  should  be  paid  to  him ;  and  pro- 
viding also  that  Episcopalians  should  not  be  chargeable 
with  the  erection  of  Congregational  meeting-houses.  Sim- 
ilar relief  was  extended  by  Connecticut  in  i  729  to  Quakers 
and  Baptists ;  and  Massachusetts  granted  exemption  to 
these  two  classes  of  Christians  in  1728—29.  In  both  col- 
onies release  from  payment  to  the  legally  recognized 
churches  was  obtained  only  by  a  formal  signification  of 
connection  with  another  denomination.  The  laws  were  in- 
terpreted with  strictness;  in  the  excitement  of  the  "  Great 
Awakening  "  in  Connecticut  some  of  the  privileges  were 
temporarily  withdrawn.  But  on  the  whole  the  system  of 
taxation  and  exemptions  worked  to  the  upbuilding  of  other 
denominations  at  the  expense  of  Congregationalism.  If  a 
quarrel  occurred  in  a  Congregational  parish  during  the  co- 
lonial period,  a  second  Congregational  church  could  not  be 
formed  without  legislative  permission,  since  all  Congrega- 
tional inhabitants  of  the  parish  were  legally  bound  to  sup- 
port the  duly  settled  minister.  But  the  disgruntled  fac- 
tion, by  becoming  Baptists,  Episcopalians,  Presbyterians,  or 
Quakers  in  name,  could  be  relieved  from  all  payment  to 
the  Congregational  minister.  Not  a  few  churches,  especially 
of  the  Baptist  faith,  had  their  origin  in  this  state  of  the 
law,  which  made  it  easier  for  the  minority  in  church  quar- 
rels to  become  connected  with  another  denomination  than 
to  found  another  church  of  their  own  order. 


236  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vil. 

As  the  eighteenth  century  wore  on  rehgious  freedom 
increased,  especially  after  the  discussions  of  the  revolu- 
tionary period.  The  Massachusetts  Bill  of  Rights  of  i  780 
declared  it  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to  require  the  sup- 
port of  Protestant  worship,  and  continued  to  it  authority 
to  compel  attendance  thereon  where  conscientious  scru- 
ples did  not  prevent  the  individual  citizen.  But  it  left 
each  town  or  parish  free  to  choose  such  a  minister  as  the 
inhabitants  pleased,  without  stipulating  that  he  should  be 
of  the  Congregational  order,  and  only  requiring  that  all 
taxes  paid  for  the  support  of  worship  by  any  resident  not 
of  the  same  belief  as  the  majority  of  the  parish  should  go 
to  a  "  public  teacher  "  of  the  denomination  to  which  he 
belonged,  provided  there  was  such  a  minister  whose  ser- 
vices he  attended.  Some  difficulty  was  made  for  dissent- 
ers under  these  provisions  by  the  hesitation  of  judges  to 
look  upon  the  clergy  of  voluntary  religious  bodies  as  "  pub- 
lic teachers."  Four  years  after  the  ratification  of  this  Bill 
of  Rights,  Connecticut  granted  even  greater  freedom  to  its 
dissenters  by  a  change  in  the  statutes  (1784).  Both  com- 
monwealths still  maintained  the  principle  that  all  persons 
should  be  taxed  for  the  support  of  religious  institutions, 
and  that  there  was  one  standard  polity  and  faith  in  each 
town  or  parish  from  which  all  others  were  dissenters ;  and 
both  still  required  that  this  dissent  should  be  expressed 
by  the  deposit  with  the  town-clerk  of  a  formal  certificate 
in  order  to  secure  exemption.  But  this  system  came  to 
an  end  in  Connecticut  by  the  adoption  of  the  present  con- 
stitution in  1818,  by  which  all  religious  bodies  were  made 
equal  before  the  law  and  all  connection  between  church 
and  state  was  severed  ;  and  a  similar  disestablishment  took 
place  in  Massachusetts  in  1834.  Thus,  after  about  two 
hundred  years  of  ministerial  maintenance  by  state  aid, 
New  England  Congregationalism  reverted  to  its  original 


SEPARATION  OF  CHURCH  AND   STATE.  237 

system  of  voluntaryism.  Outside  of  New  England  the 
Congregational  churches  have  never  enjoyed  the  support 
of  civil  government. 

The  "  meeting-house  "  was  the  religious  and  social  cen- 
ter of  colonial  New  England.  It  was  alike  the  place  of 
worship  and  of  political  discussion.  No  impropriety  was 
seen  in  using  the  meeting-house  for  legislative  and  town 
assemblies,  for  no  special  sacredness  was  held  to  attach  to 
the  structure  itself, — the  "  church  "  in  strict  Congregational 
thought  has  always,  been  the  association  of  Christian  be- 
lievers, though  loose  usage  has  often  affixed  the  title  to  the 
place  of  their  worship.  It  has  often,  though  erroneously, 
been  intimated  that  New  England  meeting-houses  were 
studiously  mean.  On  the  contrary,  they  were,  from  the 
first,  the  most  elaborate  structures  that  the  comparatively 
unskilled  carpenters  and  masons  of  colonial  days  could 
erect.  Ecclesiastical  symbolism  was  scrupulously  eschewed  ; 
but  the  steady  improvement  in  the  material  elements  of 
early  New  England  life  finds  its  reflection  in  the  constantly 
advancing  elaborateness  of  the  meeting-houses. 

The  "  meeting-house  "  of  colonial  days  was  prevailingly 
a  square,  or  slightly  oblong,  structure,  entered  by  a  door 
on  the  side  and  at  each  end,  and  having  within  a  pulpit 
well  raised  up  on  the  side  wall  opposite  the  main  door, 
from  which,  nearly  to  the  pulpit,  a  broad  aisle  ran.  In 
earliest  New  England  two  pews  at  different  heights  faced 
the  congregation  from  the  front  of  the  pulpit,  the  more 
dignified  for  the  elders,  the  lower  for  the  deacons.  The 
congregation  sat  on  benches ;  the  men  on  one  side  of  the 
house,  and  the  women  with  the  smaller  children  on  the 
other,  while  the  boys  and  young  men,  under  the  watchful 
eyes  of  a  tithing-man,  occupied  the  gallery,  if  the  edifice 
was  elaborate  enough  to  boast  such  a  structure.  As  in 
England,  seats   were    assigned   in   the   meeting-house   in 


238  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

accordance  with  the  supposed  social  dignity  of  the  occu- 
pants— a  custom  productive  of  much  discussion  and  heart- 
burning; but  this  separation  of  famihes  and  "  dignifying" 
of  seats  continued  in  some  parts  of  New  England  to  a  very 
late  period.  Husbands  and  wives  sat  apart  at  Glaston- 
bury, Conn.,  till  1757  ;  while  seats  were  assigned  by  social 
rank  at  East  Hartford  till  1824,  and  at  Norfolk,  Conn.,  in 
form  at  least,  till  1875.  The  original  system  of  benches 
or  "  slips  "  was  early  modified  in  part  by  the  erection  of 
"  pews,"  at  first  nearly  square  inclosures,  often  constructed 
at  the  expense  of  the  occupant,  and  placed  in  any  conven- 
ient position  which  the  vote  of  the  society  would  assign 
for  his  use,  usually  around  the  sides  of  the  house.  In 
these  "pews"  whole  families  sat  together,  and  gradually 
they  grew  to  be  held  as  property,  or  subject  to  a  fixed 
rent.  No  method  of  heating  New  England  churches  was 
employed  during  the  colonial  period. 

The  first  of  the  two  Sabbath  services  began  at  nine  in 
the  morning,  the  congregations  being  summoned  by  a  bell 
in  a  few  of  the  more  wealthy  communities,  but  more  gen- 
erally, at  least  during  the  seventeenth  century,  by  a  drum, 
a  conch-shell,  a  horn,  a  flag,  or  some  such  inexpensive 
device.  Once  gathered  in  the  building,  the  services  were 
begun,  where  a  church  had  a  full  complement  of  the  offi- 
cers prescribed  by  early  Congregationalism,  by  a  prayer 
of  "  about  a  quarter  of  an  houre  "  by  the  pastor, — of  course 
wholly  unliturgical,  for  the  founders  of  New  England  de- 
lighted in  their  liberty  of  making  their  wants  known  unto 
God  in  words  suited  to  their  immediate  necessities.  Mem- 
bers of  the  congregation  in  illness  or  trial  were  accustomed 
to  request  the  supplications  of  the  church  by  "  bills  "  read 
by  the  pastor  before  this  prayer. 

Following  the  petition,  the  teacher  read  a  passage  of 
the  Bible,  expounding  it  section  by  section.     This  form  of 


THE  MEETING-HOUSE  AND  SERVICES.  239 

Scripture-reading  was  deemed  the  only  fitting  method  by 
the  New  England  fathers,  "  dumb-reading,"  or  reading 
without  comment,  being  supposed  to  savor  of  the  liturgical 
usages  from  which  they  had  fled.  But  by  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century  New  England  practice  was  undergo- 
ing a  twofold  change.  In  some  churches  in  the  larger 
towns,  like  that  of  Brattle  Street  in  Boston,  the  custom  of 
Scripture-reading  without  comment  had  begun ;  but  in 
many  places  Scripture  exposition  had  fallen  into  disuse 
with  the  abandonment  of  the  ofifice  of  teacher,  and  the 
Bible  was  not  read  in  the  services  of  the  Lord's  day.  At 
Newburyport,  Mass.,  the  regular  use  of  the  Scriptures  was 
approved  by  the  church  in  1750;  at  West  Newbury,  in 
1 769 ;  while  the  General  Association  of  Connecticut  as 
late  as  1765  recommended  "the  Public  reading  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures"  to  the  churches  of  the  colony,  and  in 
1 8 10  the  Litchfield  South  Consociation  repeated  the  ex- 
hortation to  the  churches  under  its  care. 

Next  in  order  in  the  morning  worship  came  a  psalm, 
lined  off  by  the  ruling  elder,  or  where  such  an  officer  was 
lacking,  by  a  brother  "  whom  the  Pastor  desires  to  do 
that  Service,"  that  the  congregation  might  sing.  New 
England  singing  was  indeed  a  dolorous  performance.  In- 
strumental music  was  disapproved  till  far  into  the  eight- 
eenth century,  as  forbidden  by  Amos  v.  23  ;  and  this  feeling 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  refusal  of  so  innovating  a  body  as 
Brattle  Church  in  1713  to  accept  an  organ  bequeathed  to  it 
by  William  Brattle,  its  most  prominent  founder  and  lead- 
ing worshiper.  Thus,  deprived  of  instrumental  music,  and 
using  books,  when  books  were  used  at  all,  which,  like  the 
Bay  Psalm-Book,  were  without  notes,  the  tunes  retained 
by  tradition  were  few,  and  became  almost  hopelessly  cor- 
rupted. Even  Cotton  Mather,  in  his  "  Ratio  Disciplinas  " 
of  1726,  writing  when  the  dawn  of  improvement  was  per- 


240  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

ceptible,  could  find  no  higher  praise  than  that  New  Eng- 
land worship  of  song  "  has  been  commended  by  Strangers 
as  generally  not  zvorse  than  what  is  in  many  other  parts  of 
the  World,"  "  and  more  than  a  Score  oi  Tunes  "  are  to  be 
heard.  When  Mather  thus  described  the  state  of  music 
about  Boston,  a  vigorous  reform  was  in  progress.  In  i  7 14 
Rev.  John  Tufts,  of  West  Newbury,  Mass.,  had  published 
a  little  tract  in  favor  of  singing  by  note,  and  containing 
twenty-eight  tunes.  Eleven  editions  were  called  for  in 
the  next  few  years.  The  musical  impulse  thus  given  to 
the  churches  rapidly  spread.  Within  the  next  twenty 
years  the  agitation  had  involved  nearly  all  New  England, 
and  the  new^er  method  of  notes  and  printed  tunes,  instead 
of  lining  off  and  memoriter  singing,  though  violently  op- 
posed as  a  dishonor  to  the  fathers  and  a  dangerous  step 
Rome-ward,  won  its  way  into  favor  by  reason  of  its  ob- 
vious superiority.  The  choir  did  not  gain  much  footing 
till  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 

The  psalm  was  followed  by  the  sermon,  always  esteemed 
the  central  element  in  the  Congregational  service.  New 
England  discourses  were  habitually  based  on  a  text,  and 
in  the  seventeenth  century  were  expected  to  be  about  an 
hour  in  ordinary  delivery,  an  hour-glass  often  being  placed 
on  the  pulpit ;  though  special  occasions  were  thought  to 
warrant  more  protracted  efforts.  The  preaching  of  the 
first  two  generations  of  the  settlers  was  almost  exclusively 
memoriter  or  from  brief  notes,  though  with  very  pains- 
taking preparation  since,  as  Cotton  Mather  remarks,  "  well 
studied  Sermons  are  those  which  among  Judicious  Chris- 
tians in  these  Churches  find  the  best  Acceptance."  By 
the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  however,  fully 
written  discourses  had  "  become  extremely  Fashionable," 
somewhat  to  the  detriment  of  freedom  in  delivery,  for 
"  no  doubt  some  Sermons  are  the  better  Composed  for  it, 


SUNDAY  SERVICES.  24 1 

tho'  it  will  require  good  Management  if  they  be  not  the 
less  Affecting."  A  glance  at  a  few  of  the  hundreds  of 
manuscript  sermons  that  have  come  down  to  the  present 
day  shows  good  reason  for  the  caution  quoted  from  the 
"  Ratio  Disciplinae,"  since,  owing  to  the  expensiveness  of 
paper,  they  were  customarily  written  on  pages  as  small  as 
a  modern  postal-card,  and  in  writing  almost  microscopic 
in  its  minuteness.  Such  manuscripts  must  have  been  held 
close  to  the  eyes  to  be  read  at  all,  and  the  difficulty  of 
their  decipherment  must  have  prevented  all  freedom  in 
deHvery.  In  the  early  days  of  the  colonies,  as  among  the 
English  Puritans,  it  was  a  frequent  usage  for  some  of  the 
auditors  to  take  notes  of  the  sermon  during  its  progress, 
but  this  rather  laborious  custom  hardly  survived  the  de- 
cline of  the  first  religious  enthusiasm  of  New  England. 

After  the  sermon  the  teacher,  when  there  was  such  an 
officer,  or  if  there  was  not,  then  the  pastor,  made  "  a  shorter 
Prayer,"  asking  the  divine  blessing  on  the  sermon  ;  and  the 
congregation  was  dismissed  with  the  benediction.  When 
Cotton  Mather  wrote,  at  the  close  of  the  period  under  re- 
view, a  second  psalm  was  often  sung  between  the  prayer 
and  the  words  of  blessing  in  dismission. 

Between  the  services  of  morning  and  afternoon  there 
was  an  intermission  of  several  hours  in  the  larger  towns, 
and  of  less  duration  in  the  country,  where  the  distance  of 
the  meeting-house  from  the  homes  of  many  of  the  con- 
gregation and  the  badness  of  the  roads  made  an  early  ter- 
mination of  the  worship  imperative.  The  interval  of  wait- 
ing was  spent  in  social  intercourse,  and  as  the  only  occasion 
on  which  the  scattered  inhabitants  of  a  rural  community 
had  an  opportunity  of  exchanging  news  and  gossip,  this 
friendly  hour  doubtless  did  as  much  as  any  statutory  enact- 
ment to  secure  the  general  attendance  of  all  inhabitants 
at  the  meeting-house  from  Sunday  to  Sunday.     But  occa- 


242  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  vii, 

sionally  a  church  felt  that  a  more  spiritually  profitable 
method  of  employing  the  time  of  waiting  might  be  devised, 
and  instances  are  recorded,  especially  in  seasons  of  relig- 
ious interest,  where  men  were  appointed  "  to  tarry  at  the 
meeting-house  by  turns,  and  read  some  suitable  discourse 
between  the  public  services,  for  the  benefit  and  edification 
of  such  as  tarr}^  at  noon."  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
such  an  infringement  on  the  one  general,  if  rather  sober, 
rural  visiting-hour  of  the  week  was  never  very  widely 
adopted. 

At  two  o'clock,  or  earlier  in  the  afternoon,  the  second 
service  began, — a  service  which  was  substantially  a  repe- 
tition of  that  of  the  morning,  save  that  where  a  church 
had  both  a  pastor  and  a  teacher,  the  minister  who  had  not 
preached  in  the  morning  usually  delivered  the  sermon.  At 
the  afternoon  service  also,  a  collection  was  taken  in  such 
churches  as  supported  public  worship  by  voluntary  gifts, 
and  in  others,  as  occasions  for  benevolence  presented  them- 
selves,— a  duty  to  which  the  congregation  was  summoned 
in  the  early  days  of  the  churches  by  one  of  the  deacons, 
who  exhorted  "  as  God  has  prospered  you,  so  freely  offer." 
At  Boston  and  Plymouth,  and  probably  elsewhere,  no  plates 
were  passed ;  but  the  congregation  rose  and  filed  by  the 
deacons'  seat,  putting  their  money  or  written  pledges  into 
a  box,  and  occasionally  oflFering  ornaments  or  articles  of 
merchandise,  like  the  "faire  gilt  cup  "  which  Lechford  saw 
given  at  Boston,  and  then  returning  to  their  places. 

Once  a  month,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  morning  service, 
as  Lechford  noted,  "  is  a  Sacrament  of  the  Lords  Supper, 
whereof  notice  is  given  usually  a  fortnight  before,  and  then 
all  others  departing  save  the  Church,  which  is  a  great  deal 
lesse  in  number  then  those  that  goe  away,  they  receive 
the  Sacrament,  the  Ministers  and  ruling  Elders  sitting  at 
the  Table,  the  rest   in   their  seats.   .   .   .  The  one  of  the 


THE   SACRAMENTS.  243 

teaching  Elders  prayes  before,  and  blesseth,  and  conse- 
crates the  Bread  and  Wine,  according  to  the  words  of  In- 
stitution ;  the  other  prays  after  the  receiving  of  all  the 
members  .  .  .  the  Ministers  deliver  the  Bread  in  a  Charger 
to  some  of  the  chiefe  .  .  .  and  they  deliver  the  Charger 
from  one  to  another,  till  all  have  eaten ;  in  like  manner  the 
cup,  till  all  have  dranke,  goes  from  one  to  another.  Then 
a  Psalme  is  sung,  and  with  a  short  blessing  the  congrega- 
tion is  dismissed."  Though  participation  was  confined  to 
church-members,  all  persons  who  wished  were  permitted 
to  be  spectators  at  the  Supper. 

Baptism  was  held  by  Congregationalism  to  be  the  seal 
or  witness  to  the  membership  of  a  believing  adult,  or  of  a 
child  or  ward  of  a  Christian  household,  in  the  divinely  ap- 
pointed fellowship  of  some  covenanted  church,  and  should 
not  therefore  be  administered  privately,  but  before  the 
congregation.  At  Boston,  in  Lechford's  day,  the  rite  was 
granted  at  the  close  of  the  afternoon  service  whenever 
desired,  at  the  hands  of  "  either  Pastor  or  Teacher,  in  the 
Deacons  seate.  .  .  .  The  Pastor  most  commonly  makes  a 
speech  or  exhortation  to  the  Church,  and  parents  concern- 
ing Baptisme,  and  then  prayeth  before  and  after.  It  is 
done  by  washing  or  sprinkling." 

While  the  Sabbath  was  thus  filled  with  services  in  which 
the  element  of  preaching  was  made  central,  the  New  Eng- 
land church  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
had  none  of  that  wealth  and  variety  of  societies  and  meet- 
ings for  different  types  of  Christian  work  which  engage 
the  efforts  of  so  large  a  portion  of  the  membership  at  the 
present  day.  In  the  larger  towns  from  the  first  a  weekly 
"lecture"  was  maintained, — in  Boston  and  Hartford  on 
Thursdays,  though  elsewhere  often  on  other  days  of  the 
week.  On  these  occasions  a  sermon  was  preached,  though 
custom  favored  a  somewhat  freer  and  more  secular  ranoe 


244  ^-^^   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

of  topics  for  discussion  than  on  the  Sabbath.  It  was  the 
especial  occasion  for  the  treatment  of  questions  of  poHtics 
and  morals,  though  always  with  primary  reference  to  the 
Scriptures.  In  the  first  years  of  enthusiasm  these  meet- 
ings were  so  popular  that  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts 
in  1639  sought  to  limit  their  "  length  and  frequency,"  lest 
running  about  from  one  town  to  another  to  be  present  at 
"  two  or  three  in  the  week  "  should  seriously  interfere  with 
business;  but  a  century  later  (1740)  Rev.  Benjamin  Col- 
man  had  to  say  of  the  Boston  "  lecture,"  that  it  had  "  been 
shamefully  neglected  by  the  Town." 

The  "  preparatory  lecture,"  anticipatory  of  the  Supper 
and  now  characteristic  of  Congregationalism,  was  begun 
March  4,  1 720,  just  at  the  close  of  the  period  under  review, 
by  the  joint  action  of  the  Brattle  Street  and  First  churches 
of  Boston,  where  the  lecture  was  held  for  many  years, 
monthly,  on  Friday  afternoons. 

Evening  meetings  of  a  public  character  w^ere  regarded 
with  suspicion  in  early  New  England  as  possible  occa- 
sions of  disorder  in  the  larger  towns,  while  scattered  rural 
communities  even  now  find  them  difficult  of  maintenance. 
After  our  period,  especially  in  the  revival  season  known 
as  the  "  Great  Awakening,"  a  few  evening  services  were 
instituted  in  populous  places,  as,  for  example,  at  Boston, 
on  October  21,  1740;  but  they  were  not  an  approved 
measure,  and  did  not  become  so  till  the  revivals  which 
marked  the  dawn  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Besides  these  set  occasions,  many  days  of  fast  and  of 
thanksgiving  were  appointed  by  public  authority  or  ob- 
served by  individual  churches,  on  which  the  services  were 
similar  to  those  of  the  Sabbath,  though  the  sermon  bore 
distinctly  on  the  themes  of  the  special  assembly.  It  need 
hardly  be  said  that  saints'  and  holy  days  were  scrupulously 
disregarded. 


OTHER   SERVICES.  245 

These  public  services  of  the  churches  did  not  indeed 
embrace  all  the  agencies  for  religious  nurture  by  which 
early  New  England  Christian  life  was  characterized.  Not 
only  was  there  careful  catechising  in  families  and  schools ; 
ministers  from  time  to  time  took  heed  to  their  flocks  "  by 
goeing  from  hous  to  hous  "  in  order  to  ascertain  how  they 
were  "p'fitting  by  y^  word";  and  young  people  were 
gathered  together  in  any  season  of  religious  interest  for 
special  pastoral  instruction.  Private  meetings  of  the  breth- 
ren with  or  without  the  minister  were  not  infrequent,  and 
from  I  705  onward  many  towns  had  voluntary  societies  of 
church-members,  to  "  consider  what  may  be  for  the  good 
of  the  Town  in  general,  especially  the  churches  in  it,  and 
more  particularly  our  Church." 

In  two  features  of  social  life,  now  deemed  by  Congre- 
gationalists,  as  by  other  Christians,  occasions  peculiarly 
appropriate  for  religious  service, — weddings  and  funerals, 
— the  customs  of  early  New  England  were  unlike  those  of 
the  present  day.  Like  the  English  Separatists,  the  found- 
ers of  New  England  held  that  ministers  were  not  to  be 
"  burthened  with  the  execution  of  Civill  afi'aires,  as  the 
celebration  of  marriage,  burying  the  dead,  &c.  which  things 
belong  aswell  to  those  without  as  within  the  Church." 
The  feeling  which  prompted  this  prohibition  was  due  in 
part  to  reaction  from  the  Roman  conception  of  marriage 
as  a  sacrament  and  from  the  Catholic  j^ractice  of  prayers 
for  the  dead,  in  part  also  to  the  thought  that  a  minister  had 
pastoral  duties  only  to  the  particular  body  of  covenanted 
believers  whom  he  served.  Therefore  early  New  England 
marriages  were  celebrated  by  the  magistrates,  but  not  with- 
out the  asking  of  the  divine  blessing  on  the  unions,  for  these 
civil  officers,  themselves  almost  invariably  professing  Chris- 
tians, "  not  only  gave  the  Marriage  Covenant  unto  the 
Parties,  but  also  made  the  Prayers  proper  for  the  Occa- 


246  THE    CONGREGATION ALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

sion,"  as  Cotton  Mather  tells  us.  But  the  usage  of  the 
church  universal  was  stronger  than  the  Separatist  theory 
in  this  matter,  and  in  1686  the  first  instance  of  marriage 
by  a  clergyman  occurred  in  Massachusetts,  while  in  Con- 
necticut ministers  were  permitted  to  join  in  marriage  by  a 
law  of  1694. 

Though  no  word  of  prayer  cheered  an  early  New  Eng- 
land funeral,  there  was  no  want  of  respect  to  the  dead. 
Lechford  records  in  his  book  of  1642,  that  "  at  Burials, 
nothing  is  read,  nor  any  Funeral  Sermon  made,  but  all 
the  neighbourhood,  or  a  good  company  of  them,  come  to- 
gether by  tolling  of  the  bell,  and  carry  the  dead  solemnly 
to  his  grave,  and  there  stand  by  him  while  he  is  buried. 
The  Ministers  are  most  commonly  present."  But  as  in  mar- 
riage, so  here,  the  peculiar  usage  at  length  disappeared. 
In  1685,  at  Roxbury,  there  occurred  the  first  instance  in 
the  Congregational  colonies  of  prayer  at  a  funeral, — the 
occasion  being  the  burial  of  a  minister.  Rev.  William 
Adams.  Yet  these  religious  observances  won  their  way 
slowly.  When  Cotton  Mather  published  his  "  Ratio  Dis- 
ciplinae  "  forty-one  years  later,  he  found  that  "  in  many 
Towns  of  New- England  the  Ministers  make  agreeable 
Prayers  with  the  People  come  together  at  the  House,  to 
attend  the  Funeral  of  the  Dead.  And  in  some,  the  Min- 
isters make  a  short  Speech  at  the  Grave.  But  in  other 
Places  both  of  these  Things  are  wholly  omitted." 

The  relation  of  one  church  to  another  was  that  of  sis- 
terly equality,  since  of  each  church  Christ  is  the  imme- 
diate head ;  and  to  New  England  thinking,  especially  as 
developed  through  the  experiences  narrated  in  preceding 
chapters  of  this  book,  this  relation  was  anything  but  one  of 
indifference.  The  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  enumerated  six 
ways  in  which  "the  communion  of  Churches"  was  to  be 
"  exercised."     The  first  was  that  "  of  mutuall  care  in  tak- 


COMMUNION  OF   CHURCHES.  247 

ing  thought  for  one  anothers  wellfare."  A  second  way 
was  that  "  of  Consultation  one  with  another,"  in  all  ques- 
tions of  difficulty ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  in  all  ministerial 
settlements  and  dismissions  the  advice  of  a  council  of  the 
representatives  of  neighboring  churches  and  ministers  was 
sought.  But  sometimes  a  church  would  fall  into  what 
seemed  to  its  neighbors  dangerous  error  or  reprehensi- 
ble quarrel,  and  yet  asked  no  advice.  Congregationalism 
would  remedy  such  a  situation,  if  possible,  by  methods 
similar  to  those  laid  down  by  the  Saviour  for  dealing  with 
an  erring  brother  within  a  local  church  ;  and  this  gave  rise 
to  the  "  third  way  "  of  communion, — that  of  "  admoni- 
tion." In  the  exercise  of  this  duty,  any  church  which 
perceived  that  a  sister  church  was  in  error  should  first 
admonish  its  wandering  associate,  as  one  Christian  might 
a  sinful  brother.  Should  this  exhortation  produce  no 
amendment,  the  admonishing  church  was  to  acquaint  sev- 
eral other  churches  with  the  offense  and  ask  them  to  join 
in  reproof.  Should  they  too  be  unheeded,  they  were  to 
call  a  council  of  neighboring  churches  to  advise  in  the 
case,  and  should  this  advice  be  unfavorable  to  the  accused 
church,  such  churches  as  approved  the  result  were  to  de- 
clare a  cessation  of  communion  with  the  offending  church. 
This  system  was  strengthened  in  the  "Saybrook  Platform  " 
by  making  the  membership  of  the  council  definite,  and  its 
methods  more  exactly  prescribed,  but  the  underlying  the- 
ory was  the  same.  A  fourth,  and  more  agreeable,  mode 
of  communion  the  "Platform"  styled  that  of  "participa- 
tion "  ;  which  permitted  members  of  one  church  providen- 
tially with  another  to  join  with  the  church  of  their  sojourn 
in  the  sacraments.  Closely  connected  with  this  method 
was  the  fifth  way, — that  of  "  recommendation,"  by  which 
members  going  from  one  church  to  another  for  a  more 
permanent  stay  transferred   their   relationship  by  letters 


248  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

of  recommendation  or  dismission.  And  finally,  the  sixth 
manifestation  of  fellowship  was  in  the  way  of  "  reliefe  & 
succour,"  when  a  more  gifted  church  supplied  a  needy 
sister  either  with  "  able  members  to  furnish  them  with 
officers,"  or  "  outward  support  "  of  a  pecuniary  character, 
— a  twofold  thought,  which  contains  the  germ  of  the  whole 
modern  home  missionary  activity  of  Congregationalism. 

But  no  account  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  colonial 
New  England  would  be  complete  without  mention  of  the 
general  supervision  in  ecclesiastical  aflfairs  exercised  by 
the  colonial  legislatures.  These  general  courts  in  Massa- 
chusetts and  New  Haven  were  composed  for  a  generation 
exclusively  of  church-members,  and  throughout  the  period 
with  which  we  have  to  do  were  predominantly  made  up 
of  Christian  men  in  all  the  colonies.  They  were  therefore 
really  representative  of  the  churches,  though  indirectly  and 
through  laymen  only.  As  the  "  Cambridge  Platform  " 
expressed  it :  "  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Magistrate,  to  take 
care  of  matters  of  religion,  &  to  improve  his  civil  author- 
ity for  the  observing  of  the  duties  commanded  in  the  first, 
as  well  as  for  observing  of  the  duties  commanded  in  the 
second  table;"  i.e.,  his  authority  extended  both  to  matters 
of  belief  and  practice.  And  the  colonial  courts  acted  fully 
on  this  theory.  They  called  Synods ;  they  authorized  the 
organization  of  churches;  they  determined  church  quar- 
rels ;  they  reprimanded  communities  which  were  laggard 
in  procuring  a  minister;  they  sometimes  recommended 
ministerial  candidates  ;  they  regulated  the  collection  of  the 
ministers'  support,  and  heard  the  prayers  of  those  pastors 
who  were  inadequately  recompensed ;  they  commended 
statements  of  faith  and  polity  to  the  churches ;  they  coun- 
seled weekly  "lectures"  and  careful  catechising.  Some- 
times, as  when  the  Boston  Second  Church  proposed  to 
choose  an  uneducated  pastor  in  1653—54,  they  interfered 


LEGISLATIVE   SUPERVISION.  249 

with  their  advice;  on  one  occasion  at  least,  in  1652,  the 
Massachusetts  court  enumerated  the  books  of  the  Script- 
ures by  name,  and  threatened  banishment  or  possible 
death  on  all  who  should  deny  any  of  them  "  to  be  the 
written  &  infallible  word  of  God  "  ;  at  another  time,  in 
1646,  the  Massachusetts  legislature  became  a  missionary 
society  for  sending  the  gospel  to  the  Indians.  The  watch- 
fulness of  the  general  courts  over  the  churches  was  inces- 
sant, minute,  and  not  infrequently  annoying. 

Yet  this  governmental  supervision  had  its  distinct  limits. 
The  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  declared:  "  As  it  is  unlawfull 
for  church-ofiticers  to  meddle  with  the  sword  of  the  Magis- 
trate, so  it  is  unlawfull  for  the  Magistrate  to  meddle  with 
the  work  proper  to  church-officers;"  and  this  restriction 
represented  fairly  well  the  actual  practice.  Large  as  was 
the  exercise  of  influence  and  authority  by  the  legislatures 
over  the  churches,  governmental  authority  did  not  appoint 
ministers,  nor  did  it  compel  individuals  to  become  church- 
members,  or  to  offer  their  children  for  baptism.  In  gen- 
eral, the  churches,  even  in  the  most  theocratic  portion  of 
New  England  history,  enjoyed  local  autonomy  and  a  de- 
gree of  individual  freedom  which  has  never  characterized 
the  churches  of  any  other  land  where  ecclesiastical  affairs 
have  been  the  subject  of  governmental  cognizance. 

It  is  difficult  to  fix  an  exact  terminus  to  the  period  of 
governmental  supervision  in  New  England.  Its  more  ex- 
tensive manifestations  were,  of  course,  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  Massachusetts  charter  of  1691  greatly  lim- 
ited its  possibilities  in  that  province,  so  that  throughout 
the  eighteenth  century  the  legislature  interfered  in  eccle- 
siastical matters  more  in  Connecticut  than  in  the  larger 
Puritan  commonwealth.  But  this  supervision  tended  to 
assume  less  and  less  pronounced  forms.  It  slowly  died 
out.      Long  before  the  Revolution  it  had  come  to  amount 


250  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vii. 

to  little  more  than  the  maintenance  of  a  certain  method 
of  settling  and  recompensing  a  minister  and  defraying 
other  ecclesiastical  expenses ;  but  a  measure  of  connection 
between  church  and  state,  and  consequently  of  potential 
state  supervision,  continued  till  the  full  disestablishment  of 
these  churches  in  our  own  century. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE    GREAT   AWAKENING   AND    THE    RISE    OF   THEO- 
LOGICAL   PARTIES. 

The  fourth  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  witnessed 
the  beginnings  of  a  remarkable  revival  period  which  pro- 
foundly stirred  the  churches  of  New  England  and  of  the 
Middle  Colonies,  which  gave  rise  to  divisions  and  doctrinal 
discussions  to  a  degree  unknown  in  New  England  hereto- 
fore, and  which  led  ultimately  to  the  rise  of  a  distinctly 
American  school  of  theology.  Interest  in  the  discussion 
of  polity  had  now  become  well-nigh  exhausted,  since  few 
New  Englanders  were  familiar  with  any  type  of  church 
government  other  than  the  Congregational.  From  this 
revival  movement  onward  till  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  New  England  religious  thought  concerned  itself 
with  doctrine ;  and  polity  did  not  rise  again  into  impor- 
tance till  contact  on  a  large  scale  with  other  forms  of  church 
life,  after  the  narrow  territorial  bounds  of  New  England 
had  long  been  burst  by  her  westward-streaming  sons  and 
daughters,  once  more  turned  the  attention  of  Congrega- 
tionalists  to  what  they  deem  the  peculiar  excellencies  of 
the  system  they  profess. 

The  type  of  piety  for  half  a  century  after  the  "  Reform- 
ing Synod  "  was  low  and  unemotional.  There  were  in- 
deed occasional  manifestations  of  religious  interest  here 
and  there  in  the  churches,  as,  for  example,  in  Northamp- 
ton under  the  ministry  of  Solomon  Stoddard  apparently 
in  1679,  1683,  1696,  1 712,  and  17 18;  at  Hartford  in  1696; 

251 


252  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

at  Taunton  in  1705  ;  at  Windham  in  1721  ;  and  a  consid- 
erable and  general,  though  brief,  religious  quickening  fol- 
lowed the  deep  impressions  produced  by  the  great  earth- 
quake of  October  29,  1 727.  But  none  of  these  movements 
were  of  any  striking  magnitude.  The  general  type  of 
preaching  and  of  religious  life  which  had  come  to  charac- 
terize the  third  and  fourth  New  England  generations  was 
not  conducive  to  revivals.  The  intense  preaching  of  the 
founders,  directed  to  a  class  of  men  profoundly  stirred  by 
religious  ideals,  had  been  marked  by  "  conversion,"  or  a 
conscious  change  in  a  man's  relation  to  God.  often  accom- 
panied by  deep  conviction  of  sin  and  an  intense  spiritual 
struggle.  The  founders,  in  their  strong  Calvinism,  had 
indeed  represented  man  as  wholly  passive  in  this  expe- 
rience,— "conversion"  was  solely  a  work  of  God; — but 
they  had  made  its  attainment  the  one  object  of  Christian 
hope,  before  which  all  minor  acquirements  and  privileges, 
like  birth  in  the  covenant,  sank  into  insignificance.  They 
had  insisted  upon  a  strenuous  morality ;  yet  they  had 
taught  that  morality  was  the  fruit  rather  than  the  means 
of  the  Christian  life.  But  the  decline  of  the  first  inten- 
sity of  religious  enthusiasm  inevitably  produced  a  marked 
change  in  the  emphasis  of  preaching,  if  not  in  its  doctrinal 
content.  "  Conversion  "  was  still  held  to  be  the  work  of 
God  alone,  it  was  still  declared  to  be  the  all-important 
Christian  experience ;  but  there  were  "  means  "  by  which 
a  man  could  put  his  soul  in  a  position  likely  to  receive  the 
regenerating  touch  of  God's  Spirit.  Such  means  were 
prayer,  the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  a  moral  life,  regular 
attendance  on  divine  worship,  "  owning  the  covenant " 
when  one  was  of  the  church  by  birth,  and,  in  churches 
into  which  Stoddardean  views  had  entered,  participation 
in  the  Supper. 

It  was  but  a  following    out    of    the   characteristics  of 


SPIRITUAL   DECLINE.  253 

human  nature  that  when  regeneration  was  looked  upon  as 
a  change  beyond  human  power,  and  at  the  same  time 
many  religious  acts  within  a  man's  attainment  were  de- 
clared to  be  adapted  to  put  the  soul  in  a  position  of  hope- 
ful expectation,  emphasis  should  be  placed  in  men's  think- 
ing on  the  "  means  "  which  man  could  employ,  even  while 
it  was  still  affirmed  that  the  divinely  wrought  change  was 
the  all-essential  matter.  Nor  is  it  surprising  that,  as  the 
eighteenth  century  advanced,  some  ministers  and  some 
congregations  began  to  question  the  extent  of  human  in- 
ability and  query  whether  God  had  not  so  conditioned 
regeneration  on  the  employment  of  "  means "  that  a 
"sincere"  though  necessarily  imperfect  obedience  would 
bring  saving  grace  to  him  who  rendered  it.  This  position, 
which  was  soon  known  as  "  Arminianism,"  was  not  very 
distinctly  recognized  at  the  beginning  of  the  revivals,  and 
was  never  accepted  by  the  larger  portion  of  the  churches ; 
but  the  discussions  of  the  revival  period  brought  it  into 
fuller  and  more  definite  development,  so  that  in  the  New 
England  wherein  Cotton  Mather's  "  Ratio  Disciplinae  "  of 
1726  had  declared  that  no  Arminian  pastor  could  be  found 
there  were  many  ministers  by  i  740  who  were  accused  of 
"  Arminianism."  The  chief  evil  both  of  the  old  New 
England  Calvinism  and  of  the  newer  Arminianism  was 
that  responsibility  for  a  full  and  personal  obedience  to 
God  was  practically  denied.  In  the  one  case  the  nature 
of  an  unconverted  man  was  represented  as  devoid  of  all 
present  power  to  serve  God  ;  in  the  other  a  well-intentioned 
and  serious  attempt  at  obedience  seemed  to  lay  off  upon 
God  all  further  responsibility  for  a  man's  salvation. 

It  was  into  an  atmosphere  so  filled  with  an  unemotional 
reliance  on  the  use  of  "  means  "  that  a  new  force  came  in 
the  person  and  preaching  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  great- 
est theologian  that  American  Congregationalism  has  pro- 


2  54  ^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

duced ;  and  it  came  where  a  reaction  was  perhaps  most 
needed,  at  Northampton,  Mass.,  the  source  from  which 
"  Stoddardeanism  "  had  flowed  out.  Jonathan  Edwards 
was  born  at  East  Windsor,  Conn.,  where  his  father,  Timo- 
thy Edwards,  was  pastor,  on  October  5,  1703;  and  after 
a  youth-time  of  brilliant  promise  graduated  at  Yale  Col- 
lege in  1 720.  A  period  of  study  and  of  preaching  ended 
in  his  settlement  on  February  15,  1727,  as  colleague  with 
his  maternal  grandfather,  the  aged  Solomon  Stoddard, 
whose  death  two  years  later  left  him  the  sole  pastor  of 
the  Northampton  church.  In  Edwards  there  was  a  rare 
combination  of  fervor  of  feeling,  of  almost  oriental  fertility 
of  imagination,  and  intellectual  acumen,  which  clothed  all 
that  he  said  with  glowing  force,  while  beneath  his  words 
flowed  the  stream  of  a  most  carefully  elaborated  theologic 
system ;  and  all  these  more  exalted  and  impulsive  moods 
were  emphasized  by  the  influence  of  his  wife,  Sarah,  a 
daughter  of  Rev.  James  Pierpont  of  New  Haven,  a  woman 
of  remarkable  intellectual  force,  but  even  more  conspicuous 
for  intense  spirituality  of  nature. 

Of  Edwards's  contributions  to  New  England  theology 
there  will  be  occasion  later  briefly  to  speak,  but  perhaps 
the  most  far-reaching  in  its  influence  was  his  assertion  of 
responsibility.  An  intense  Calvinist,  he  felt  the  difficulty 
of  the  old  Calvinism  as  keenly  as  the  shortcomings  of  the 
new  Arminianism ;  and,  while  he  asserted  the  absolute 
so\-ereignty  of  God,  and  the  entire  right  of  the  Creator  to 
dispose  of  his  creatures  as  seemed  wise,  he  affirmed  a  dis- 
tinction between  moral  and  natural  ability  which  had  been 
advanced  in  less  perfect  form  by  the  French  theologian  of 
the  Saumur  school,  Moses  Amyraut,  in  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  had  been  hinted  by  the  philoso- 
pher Locke,  but  which  had  been  ignored  by  most  Anglo- 
Saxon  Calvinists.      Man  has  not  lost  the  power  to  turn  to 


EDWARDS  AND    THE   REVIVALS.  255 

God,  and  hence  he  owes  to  his  Maker  a  full  and  perfect 
obedience  and  an  unfeigned  love.  He  should  therefore 
be  urged  to  begin  an  active  Christian  life  by  faith  and 
repentance,  without  an  undue  reliance  on  "  means."  But 
while  man  has  this  power,  he  has  not  the  willingness  to 
turn  to  God,  he  is  morally  unable,  and  will  so  continue 
unable,  though  responsible,  till  God  in  sovereign  mercy 
works  in  him  a  change  of  desires,  by  revealing  himself  to 
him  as  his  highest  good. 

As  far  as  any  human  origin  can  be  assigned,  the  great 
revival  began  at  Northampton  in  December,  i  734,  in  con- 
nection with  a  series  of  sermons  by  Edwards  which  set 
forth  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone,  exhorted 
to  the-  duty  of  immediate  repentance,  and  denied  that  any 
action,  however  good  in  itself,  done  by  an  "  unconverted  " 
man  laid  any  claim  either  upon  divine  justice  or  the 
promises  of  grace.  Soon  the  whole  town  seemed  in  deep 
spiritual  concern.  Little  else  was  talked  of  besides  the 
interests  of  religion;  and  these  impressions  were  deepened 
by  the  vividness  with  which  Edwards  depicted  the  wrath 
of  God,  from  which  he  exhorted  men  to  flee.  The  move- 
ment was  almost  as  marked  among  the  aged  as  among  the 
young,  and  by  May,  1735,  when  it  began  to  abate,  more 
than  three  hundred  persons  were  thought  to  have  expe- 
rienced a  regenerative  change.  Soon  the  same  impulse 
was  felt  in  other  towns  of  the  Connecticut  valley.  From 
Northfield  on  the  north  to  Windsor  on  the  south  it  afi"ected 
every  settlement  on  the  river,  and  in  Connecticut  it  ex- 
tended considerably  widely,  reaching  points  as  far  asunder 
as  Lebanon,  New  Haven,  Stratford,  and  Groton.  News 
of  these  unusual  events  was  sent  to  England  by  Rev.  Dr. 
Benjamin  Colman  of  Boston,  and  at  the  request  of  Colman's 
English  correspondents,  Rev.  Drs.  Isaac  Watts  and  John 
Guyse,  Edwards  wrote  his  "  Narrative  of  the  Surprizing 


256  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

Work  of  God,"  which  was  printed  and  circulated  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  in  1737-38,  and  turned  public  atten- 
tion in  all  Anglo-Saxon  non-prelatical  circles  to  the  Amer- 
ican revival  movement.  Public  interest  in  the  subject  was 
further  heightened  by  considerable,  though  less  extensive, 
manifestations  in  1 739-40  among  the  Presbyterians  of  New 
Jersey. 

It  was  in  a  time,  therefore,  when  popular  thought  had 
been  widely  aroused  regarding  revivals  that  Colman,  in 
1740,  invited  Rev.  George  Whitefield  to  visit  New  Eng- 
land. This  eloquent  English  preacher  was  in  the  height 
of  his  youthful  fame.  Though  but  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  his  matchless  oratory,  his  novel  methods,  and  his  fiery 
zeal  had  made  his  name  familiar,  and  this  popular  curiosity 
was  intensified  by  his  anomalous  position  as  a  clergyman 
of  the  Church  of  England  in  sympathy  with  the  doc- 
trines and  usages  of  the  Presbyterians  and  Congregation- 
alists.  He  had  gone  to  Georgia  in  1738  at  the  request  of 
his  friends,  the  Wesleys;  and  after  his  speedy  return  to 
England,  he  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  once  more,  reaching 
Philadelphia  in  November,  1739,  and  journeying  through 
the  colonies  southward  as  far  as  Savannah.  On  this  jour- 
ney he  made  the  acquaintance  of  William  Tennent  and  his 
sons,  especially  the  famous  Gilbert,  ministers  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey,  and 
second  only  to  Edwards  in  their  later  influence  in  the 
revival  movement.  From  Charleston,  S.  C,  Whitefield 
sailed  for  New  England,  and  on  September  14,  1740,  he 
was  in  Newport,  R.  I.  All  New  England  had  been  filled 
with  religious  excitement  by  the  events  of  the  last  six 
years,  and  his  reception  was  enthusiastic  in  the  extreme. 
After  three  days  of  preaching  to  crowded  assemblies  at 
Newport,  he  went  on  to  Boston,  being  received  with  the 
utmost  cordiality  by  all  classes  of  society.      For  the  next 


GEORGE    WHITEFIELD.  257 

ten  days  he  discoursed  to  immense  congregations,  taxing 
the  capacity  of  the  largest  meeting-houses,  and  assembhng 
occasionally  on  the  Common  in  the  open  air.  He  ad- 
dressed the  students  at  Harvard  College  ;  and  from  Boston 
he  journeyed  down  the  coast  as  far  as  York,  Me.,  return- 
ing to  the  Massachusetts  capital  to  repeat  for  a  week  his 
previous  successes.  Everywhere  his  audiences  were  pro- 
foundly moved.  Under  his  oratory  they  were  "  melted  "  ; 
men  wept,  and  women  fainted,  numbers  professed  con- 
version. But  with  much  that  was  excellent,  Whitefield 
began  to  exhibit  at  Boston  that  censorious  spirit  toward 
ministers  who  differed  with  him  which  marred  all  his 
preaching.  From  Boston  he  wrote  to  John  Wesley,  of 
whose  "perfectionism"  he  had  heard,  "Remember  you  are 
but  a  babe  in  Christ,  if  so  much ;  be  humble,  talk  little, 
think  and  pray  much;"  and  this  spirit  of  criticism  led  him 
to  declare  in  the  "  Old  South  "  meeting-house,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  many  ministers,  that  "  the  generality  of  preachers 
talk  of  an  unknown  and  unfelt  Christ;  and  the  reason  why 
congregations  have  been  so  dead  is,  because  they  have 
had  dead  men  preaching  to  them."  The  charge  was  un- 
deserved, for  whatever  their  shortcomings,  the  hard-work- 
ing, faithful  pastors  of  New  England  were  not  an  "  uncon- 
verted ministry." 

On  October  13,  1740,  Whitefield  left  Boston,  kissed  and 
wept  over  by  Governor  Belcher,  who  had  been  among  the 
foremost  to  do  him  honor ;  and  his  hearers  were  as  wax  in 
his  hands,  as  he  journeyed  by  way  of  Concord,  Worcester, 
Brookfield,  and  other  towns,  to  Northampton,  drawn  thither 
by  the  fame  of  the  revivals  under  Edwards.  Here  Edwards 
and  his  congregation  were  much  moved,  though  the  North- 
ampton minister  felt  it  necessary  to  remonstrate  with  his 
guest  for  giving  too  great  heed  to  "  impulses  "  as  evi- 
dences of  regeneration  in  his  hearers,  and  for  "  judging 


258  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

Other  persons  to  be  unconverted."  But  on  this  latter 
point  Whitefield  was  irrepressible.  At  Suffield,  Conn., 
as  he  records  in  his  journal,  "  many  ministers  were  present. 
I  did  not  spare  them."  And  so  he  went  on  his  way, 
preaching  at  Westfield,  Springfield,  East  Windsor,  Hart- 
ford, Wethersfield,  and  Middletown ;  staying  only  a  few 
hours  at  each  place,  but  remaining  nearly  three  days  at 
New  Haven,  where  he  addressed  the  students  on  "  the 
dreadful  ill  consequences  of  an  unconverted  ministry." 
Thence  he  went  rapidly  onward  to  New  York,  and  spent 
the  remainder  of  the  year  in  a  tour  through  the  other 
American  colonies.  Never  in  the  entire  history  of  New 
England  was  a  preacher  possessed  of  such  popular  influ- 
ence or  received  with  such  unbounded  adoration  by  the 
community  at  large. 

Whitefield's  brief  journey  was  followed  by  an  outburst 
of  evangelistic  activity  in  New  England.  From  December, 
1740,  to  March,  1741,  Gilbert  Tennent  continued  in  most 
effective  labor  at  Boston,  and  soon  followed  up  White- 
field's  work  in  Connecticut.  By  the  spring  and  summer 
of  1 741  the  movement  was  in  full  tide.  Not  only  were 
revival  manifestations  widely  extended,  but  many  minis- 
ters were  engaged  in  itinerant  evangelism,  of  whom  the 
most  conspicuous  were  Rev.  Messrs.  Jonathan  Parsons  of 
Lyme,  Benjamin  Pomeroy  of  Hebron,  Eleazer  Wheelock  of 
Lebanon,  Joseph  Bellamy  of  Bethlem,  and  Jolm  Graham 
of  Southbury  in  Connecticut,  and  Jonathan  Edwards  of 
Northampton  in  Massachusetts.  The  preaching  of  all  of 
these  worthy  ministers  was  accompanied  by  physical  dem- 
onstrations which  manifested  the  high  pitch  of  spiritual 
excitement  prevailing  among  their  auditors.  \\'hen  Par- 
.sons  discoursed  at  Lyme  on  May  14,  174T,  he  tells  us 
that  "  great  numbers  cried  out  aloud  in  tlie  anguish  of 
their  souls.     Several  stout  men  fell  as  though  a  cannon 


THE    GREAT  AWAKENING.  259 

had  been  discharged  and  a  ball  had  made  its  way  through 
their  hearts.  Some  young  women  were  thrown  into  hys- 
teric fits."  When  Edwards  preached  at  Enfield,  Conn., 
on  July  8,  1741,  taking  as  his  theme,  "Sinners  in  the 
hands  of  an  angry  God,"  "there  was  such  a  breathing  of 
distress,  and  weeping,  that  the  preacher  was  obliged  to 
speak  to  the  people  and  desire  silence,  that  he  might  be 
heard."  Men  claimed  to  have  visions  of  heaven  and  hell 
in  which  Christ  showed  them  their  names  written  in  the 
Book  of  Life.  And  some  of  these  extreme  bodily  mani- 
festations were  defended  as  representative  of  a  true  Chris- 
tian experience  even  by  Edwards,  whose  intense  and 
spiritual-minded  wife  was  wrought  upon  by  the  contem- 
plation of  divine  things  to  a  degree  almost  as  great  as  the 
just  awakened  hearers  at  Enfield  or  Lyme. 

It  is  no  wonder,  when  such  men  looked  with  favor  on 
a  markedly  emotional  type  of  preaching  and  experience, 
that  there  were  those  who  advanced  to  extremely  radi- 
cal methods.  Such  a  man  was  Rev.  James  Davenport  of 
Southold,  Long  Island,  in  regard  to  whom  Whitefield, 
who  was  not  conspicuous  as  a  judge  of  character,  had  de- 
clared "  that  of  all  men  living  he  knew  of  none  who  kept 
a  closer  Walk  with  God."  Excited  by  the  revivals,  he 
journeyed  through  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  ha- 
ranguing large  audiences  in  words  of  impassioned  exhor- 
tation or  denunciation,  charging  ministers  who  opposed 
him  with  being  "  unconverted  "  and  "  leading  their  people 
blindfold  to  hell."  Wherever  he  went  the  scene  of  his 
preaching  was  almost  a  riot.  At  New  London,  on  March 
6,  1743,  he  built  a  fire  of  the  books  of  Flavel,  Beveridge, 
Increase  Mather,  and  others,  and  declared  to  his  followers 
that  as  the  smoke  arose  from  this  pyre  "  so  the  smoke  of 
the  torment  of  such  of  their  authors  as  died  in  the  same 
belief  was  now  ascending  in  hell."     So  extravagant  was 


26o  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

Davenport  that  the  Connecticut  legislature  and  a  Boston 
jury,  both  of  which  took  legal  cognizance  of  his  actions, 
pronounced  him  mentally  unbalanced ;  and  it  is  charitable 
to  suppose  that  their  view  was  correct. 

But  with  all  these  vagaries  of  method,  the  revival  was 
an  awakening  such  as  has  never  been  equaled  in  intensity 
in  America.  Coming  after  a  period  of  profound  religious 
inertia  and  followed  by  a  half-century  of  similar  spiritual 
coldness,  the  ten  years  from  1734  to  1744,  and  especially 
the  years  1740—42,  were  a  season  of  wonderful  ingathering 
into  the  kingdom  of  God.  Estimates  are  of  course  almost 
entirely  conjectural.  Careful  historians  writing  a  genera- 
tion or  more  after  the  event  have  concluded  that  from 
25,000  to  50,000  out  of  the  population  of  New  England, 
then  perhaps  300,000,  were  converted  or  added  to  the 
churches.  From  such  investigation  as  the  writer  has  been 
able  to  make  he  believes  that  the  smallest  of  these  guesses 
is  greatly  in  excess  of  the  truth ;  but  though  these  esti- 
mates may  be  disallowed,  the  fact  remains  that  never  has 
there  been  so  extensive  a  manifestation  of  religious  feeling 
in  New  England  in  any  period  of  similar  duration.  It 
amply  deserves  the  title  of  the  "  Great  Awakening." 

Enough  has  been  seen,  however,  to  cause  no  surprise 
that  the  movement  awakened  very  divergent  emotions 
among  its  contemporaries.  While  men  like  Edwards  or 
Colman  looked  upon  it  as  a  blessing,  others  no  less  honest 
regarded  it  with  distrust  and  hostility.  Chief  of  these 
opponents  was  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Chauncy,  the  able,  ascetic, 
unemotional,  and  doctrinally  exceedingly  "  liberal  "  pastor 
of  the  Boston  First  Church,  whose  "  Seasonable  Thoughts 
on  the  State  of  Religion  in  New  England,"  published  in 
1 743,  was  the  most  notable  opposing  treatise  that  the 
"Great  Awakening"  produced.  Two  parties  speedily 
vlivided  New  England.     The  one  heartily  supported  the 


NEIV  ENGLAND  DIVIDED.  26  I 

new  methods  of  Christian  work,  approved  the  dramatic 
exhortations  of  itinerant  evangehsts,  and  insisted  on  a 
conscious  experience  of  a  change  in  a  man's  relations  to 
God  as  the  only  proof  that  a  man  was  truly  a  Christian. 
The  other  felt  that  the  impulse  that  controlled  the  meet- 
ings was  an  evanescent  enthusiasm,  rather  than  an  abiding 
force,  and  doubted  whether  the  results  of  the  labors  of  the 
itinerants  were  as  permanent  as  those  of  the  regular  min- 
istry ;  while  they  held  also,  that  the  surest  way  to  become 
a  Christian  was  to  employ  the  ordinary  means  of  grace 
with  diligence.  The  party  favoring  the  revivals  was  nick- 
named the  "  New  Lights,"  their  opponents  the  "  Old 
Lights  " ;  and  a  similar  division  among  the  Presbyterians 
of  the  Middle  Colonies  led  to  the  "  Old  Sides  "  and  "  New 
Sides."  On  the  whole,  a  majority  of  the  ministers  of  New 
England  inclined  to  "  Old  Light  "  views  ;  though  generally 
laboring,  as  at  Hartford,  with  the  utmost  diligence  to  reap 
the  fruits  of  the  evident  work  of  God. 

Between  these  two  parties  New  England  was  speedily 
filled  with  controversy.  The  excesses  of  the  revival  were 
nowhere  so  conspicuous  as  in  eastern  Connecticut;  and 
at  its  session  in  October,  1741,  the  Connecticut  legislature 
approved  a  proposition  of  the  ministers  "  to  have  a  Gen- 
eral Consociation  of  the  churches  in  this  Colony,  consist- 
ing of  three  ministers  and  three  messengers  from  each 
particular  consociation,"  "  hoping  that  such  a  general  con- 
vention may  issue  in  the  accommodation  of  divisions, 
settling  peace,  love,  and  charity,  and  promoting  the  true 
interest  of  vital  religion."  This  body,  of  which  the  colony 
bore  the  expenses,  met  at  Guilford,  November  24,  1741  ; 
and  enjoys  the  distinction  of  being  the  last  Congregational 
synod  representative  of  the  churches  of  a  commonwealth 
called  under  the  auspices  of  the  State  It  declared  strongly 
against  itinerant  preachers  as  the  chief  source  of  existing 


262  THE    CONGREGATIOKALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

disorders ;  and  affirmed  that  no  minister  ought  to  preach 
or  administer  the  sacraments  in  a  parish  not  his  own, 
"  without  the  consent  of  .  .  .  the  settled  minister  of  the 
parish."  This  expression  of  tlie  representatives  of  the 
churches  failing  to  improve  the  situation,  the  court,  at  its 
May  session  in  1 742,  passed  a  drastic  and  arbitrary  enact- 
ment, forbidding  itinerant  evangeHzing  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  minister  of  the  parish,  under  penalty  of  loss  of 
right  to  collect  his  legal  salary  and  subjection  to  bonds 
for  good  behavior  in  case  the  offender  was  a  clerical  resi- 
dent of  Connecticut,  or  expulsion  from  the  colony  if  a 
stranger. 

This  action  only  added  fuel  to  the  flames.  At  Can- 
terbury, Mansfield,  Plainfield,  Norwich,  and  many  other 
places  in  eastern  Connecticut,  "  Separatist,"  or,  as  they 
called  themselves,  "  Strict  Congregational,"  churches  were 
formed  during  the  next  few  years,  chiefly  by  persons  in 
humble  circumstances.  These  bodies  rejected  the  "  Say- 
brook  Platform,"  opposed  the  Half- Way  Covenant,  held 
that  an  educated  ministry  or  premeditated  sermons  were 
unnecessary,  attached  great  value  to  visions  and  to  relig- 
ious excitement  in  public  meetings,  and  believed  that  the 
church  was  so  possessed  of  the  "  key  of  knowledge  "  that 
it  could  discern  by  spiritual  intuition  who  were  the  real 
Christians  who  alone  should  constitute  its  membership. 
In  general  they  were  made  up  of  warm-hearted,  spirit- 
ually-minded, though  ignorant  persons,  who  had  been 
profoundly  touched  by  the  revival.  In  general,  too,  the 
principles  which  they  held  regarding  the  constitution  and 
government  of  the  churches  were  more  nearly  those  of 
modern  Congregationalism  than  the  views  of  the  estab- 
lished churches  which  they  opposed.  But  ignorance, 
ridiculous  fanaticism,  and  inordinate  exercise  of  discipline 
soon  distracted  their  congregations ;  they  had  upon  them 


CONNECTICUT  SEPARATISTS.  263 

the  heavy  hand  of  the  State,  which  deprived  them  of  office, 
compelled  them  by  distraint  and  imprisonment,  even  where 
in  the  majority,  to  pay  taxes  for  the  regular  ministry,  and 
till  1755  refused  all  petitions  for  their  relief.  When  the 
two  brothers  Cleaveland  of  Canterbury  attended  a  Sepa- 
ratist meeting  during  vacation  with  their  parents  in  1 744 
they  were  expelled  from  Yale  College,  as  the  saintly  David 
Brainerd  had  been  for  reflecting  on  the  religious  character 
of  tutor  Chauncey  Whittelsey  and  attending  a  Separatist 
meeting  in  1741.  Frowned  upon  by  the  authorities  of 
the  day,  and  torn  by  internal  dissensions,  the  "  Separatist  " 
churches  in  many  cases  died  out,  while  in  some  instances 
they  became  Baptist  through  the  bodily  transference  of 
the  organization  to  that  communion  or  the  adoption  of 
Baptist  sentiments  by  their  leading  members. 

Naturally  the  excesses  incident  to  the  revival  aroused 
much  opposition  from  many  of  the  ministry  in  Massachu- 
setts, though  owing  to  its  restricted  charter  the  colonial 
government,  had  it  so  desired,  was  unable  to  interfere  as 
in  Connecticut.  An  evidence  of  this  opposition  was  the 
"  testimony "  of  the  Annual  Ministerial  Convention  at 
Boston  on  May  25,  1743,  "against  several  errors  in  doc- 
trine, and  disorders  in  practice,  which  have  of  late  obtained 
in  various  parts  of  the  Land."  This  body  lamented  itin- 
eracy ;  the  preaching  of  "  private  Persons  of  no  Educa- 
tion "  ;  ordinations  "  at  large  "  ;  the  establishment  of  sepa- 
rate congregations  ;  condemnation  of  non- sympathetic  min- 
isters "  as  Pharisees,  Arminians,  blind,  and  unconverted  "  ; 
and  "  the  disorderly  Tumults  and  indecent  Behaviours  " 
which  had  defaced  many  of  the  revival  meetings.  This 
"testimony"  encountered  much  opposition  in  the  Con- 
vention from  a  large  minority,  and  the  thirty-eight  votes 
by  which  it  was  declared  adopted  represented  only  a  small 
portion  of  the  ministers  of  Massachusetts.     The  supporters 


264  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

of  revival  measures,  therefore,  led  by  Joshua  Gee  of  the 
Boston  Second  Church,  Benjamin  Colman  and  William 
Cooper  of  Brattle  Street  Church,  and  Thomas  Prince  and 
Joseph  Sewall  of  the  Old  South  Church  in  the  same  town, 
gathered  a  new  and  special  "  Assembly  of  Pastors "  at 
Boston  on  July  7,  1743,  with  an  attendance  of  ninety  min- 
isters drawn  thither  from  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp- 
shire. This  revivaUstic  convention  affirmed  it  to  be  an 
"  indispensable  Duty "  to  bear  witness  "  that  there  has 
been  a  happy  and  remarkable  Revival  of  Religion  in  many 
Parts  of  this  Land,  through  an  uncommon  divine  Influ- 
ence,"— remarkable  "  on  Account  of  the  Numbers  wrought 
upon,  .  .  .  the  Suddenness  and  quick  Progress  of  it,  .  .  . 
also  in  Respect  of  the  Degree  of  Operation,  both  in  a  Way 
of  Terror  and  in  a  Way  of  Consolation  ;  attended  in  many 
with  unusual  bodily  Effects."  At  the  same  time  they  ac- 
knowledged that  "  in  some  Places  many  Irregularities  and 
Extravagancies  have  been  permitted.  .  .  .  But  who  can 
wonder,  if  at  such  a  Time  as  this  Satan  should  intermingle 
himself,  to  hinder  and  blemish  a  Work  so  directly  contrary 
to  the  Interests  of  his  own  Kingdom?"  To  this  docu- 
ment the  names  of  sixty-eight  ministers  were  appended, 
and  attestations  were  collected  from  forty- five  more  pas- 
tors scattered  throughout  New  England, — the  whole  form- 
ing a  list  conspicuous  for  ability,  position,  and  piety. 

But  it  is  not  surprising  that,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
many  anxious  to  advance  the  revival  movement,  the  gen- 
eral religious  interest  passed  away  almost  as  suddenly  as 
it  had  begun.  Controversy  turned  men's  thoughts  away 
from  personal  spiritual  concerns,  the  type  of  revival  preach- 
ing was  too  emotional  and  too  denunciatory  not  to  pro- 
duce decided  reaction,  and  beginning  with  the  attack  on 
Louisburg  in  1745  there  followed  a  succession  of  wars  and 
political  discussions  of  the  most  engrossing  character  that 


CRITICISMS  A  AW  REPIIES.  265 

lasted  till  the  adoption  of  the  federal  constitution  in  1788. 
So  speedily  did  the  great  revival  interest  cease  that  the 
earnest  Thomas  Prince  of  the  Boston  Old  South  Church 
declared  in  November,  1 744,  that  for  a  year  previous  there 
had  been  scarcely  any  conversions  in  the  town  of  his  min- 
istry ;  and  even  Jonathan  Edwards  waited  from  1 744  to 
1 748  for  any  candidate  to  come  forward  for  admission  to 
the  Northampton  church. 

When,  therefore,  Whitefield  arrived  in  New  England 
on  October  19,  1744,  for  a  second  preaching  tour  it  was 
hardly  possible  to  expect  a  repetition  of  his  previous  suc- 
cesses ;  but  he  was  now  met  with  the  warnings  of  the 
"Old  Light"  party;  and  this  feeling  of  opposition  was 
increased  by  the  unguarded  remarks  concerning  New  Eng- 
land colleges  and  churches  which  had  found  a  place  in  his 
published  journals.  On  December  28,  1 744,  the  faculty 
of  Harvard  issued  a  "  Testimony  against  the  Rev.  Mr. 
George  Whitefield  and  his  conduct,"  and  the  authorities 
of  Yale  made  a  similar  "  Declaration  "  of  opposition  to  his 
methods  on  February  25,  1745.  As  Whitefield  journeyed 
through  New  England  during  the  winter  and  spring  of 
1744—45,  protests  against  his  admission  to  the  pulpits 
multiplied.  Such  dissuasives  emanated  from  the  Minis- 
terial Associations  of  Essex  County,  at  Cambridge,  at 
Weymouth,  at  Marlborough,  and  from  pastors  in  Bristol 
County  in  Massachusetts.  In  Connecticut  the  Hartford 
North  Association  took  similar  action  on  February  5,  1 745  ; 
and  on  June  i8th  the  General  Association  of  the  colony 
voted  regarding  Whitefield  that  "  it  would  by  no  means 
be  advisable  for  any  of  our  ministers  to  admit  him  into 
their  Pulpits  or  for  any  of  our  People  to  attend  upon  his 
Preaching  and  Administrations."  The  signers  of  these 
documents  were  not  always  anti-revivalists.  Whitefield 
himself  made  partial   explanation  regarding  some  of  the 


266  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

rash  censurings  for  which  he  was  criticised.  But  while 
many  thus  opposed  him,  he  had  vigorous  friends.  Prince, 
Gee,  Foxcroft,  and  others  of  the  Boston  ministers  upheld 
him ;  his  non-clerical  admirers  there  proposed  to  build  the 
largest  meeting-house  in  America  for  his  use ;  but  his  in- 
fluence was  slight  compared  with  that  exerted  on  his  first 
visit.  Three  times  more  he  visited  New  England, — in 
1754,  1764,  and  1770, — and  was  always  gladly  heard  by 
thousands.  On  his  last  visit  he  died  at  Newburyport, 
Mass.,  September  30,  1770;  and  his  memory  is  that  of 
one  who  with  many  faults  of  temper  and  of  method  yet 
with  many  virtues  of  heart  and  deep  consecration  of  spirit 
was  a  prime  human  factor  in  the  greatest  religious  over- 
turning that  New  England  has  ever  experienced. 

The  most  permanent  fruit  of  the  Great  Awakening  was 
the  doctrinal  discussion  of  which  it  was  the  occasion, — 
a  discussion  which  ultimately  produced  the  only  original 
contribution  of  importance  given  by  America  to  the  de- 
velopment of  Christian  theology,  in  the  system  worked 
out  by  Edwards  and  his  followers  and  often  nicknamed 
the  "  New  Divinity  "  or  "  New  England  theology."  Out 
of  the  general  mass  of  New  England  Old  Calvinism  of  the 
type  of  the  Westminster  Confession  the  Great  Awakening 
developed  two  marked  schools  of  thought,  each  carrying 
out  tendencies  already  observable  at  the  beginning  of  the 
revival  movement,  but  both  intensified  and  stimulated 
by  that  spiritual  upheaval.  These  schools,  both  of  which 
were  small  at  first  in  comparison  with  the  prevailing  Old 
Calvinism,  ultimately  led  to  the  division  of  the  Congrega- 
tional body  into  two  unequal  wings,  the  "  Orthodox  "  and 
the  "  Unitarian,"  though  the  severance  did  not  become 
formal  till  two  generations  had  passed.  Each  illustrated 
one  of  two  diametrically  opposite  tendencies  exhibited  by 
later  Puritanism  as  represented  in  England  and  America. 


RISE    OF  DOCTRINAL   SCHOOLS.  267 

It  would  be  wrong  to  call  them  "  Old  Lights  "  and  "  New 
Lights,"  and  divide  them  merely  by  their  attitude  toward 
the  revivals,  for  the  mass  both  of  the  supporters  and  the 
opponents  of  the  measures  of  VVhitefield  and  the  itinerants 
were  Old  Calvinists ;  but  the  one  party  embraced  almost 
to  a  man  the  most  strenuous  of  the  antagonists  of  the 
Great  Awakening,  while  the  other  included  its  most  zeal- 
ous advocates.  They  were  the  two  extremes  between 
which  the  Old  Calvinists  constituted  the  center. 

The  first  of  these  incipient  schools,  at  both  of  which  we 
have  already  glanced,  was  that  of  what  was  known  at  the 
time  of  the  Great  Awakening  as  "  Arminianism  "  ;  though 
as  it  differed  radically  in  spirit  from  the  contemporary 
evangelistic  Arminianism  of  the  Wesleys,  and  as  Armin- 
ian  tenets  were  only  a  part  of  its  characteristics,  its  most 
marked  doctrinal  distinction  being  a  negative  attitude  to- 
ward the  main  features  of  historic  Calvinism  rather  than  a 
constructive  genius,  we  will  designate  it  by  the  name  which 
its  spiritual  offspring  of  modern  times  prefer, — the  rather 
indefinite  title  of  "  Liberal  Theology."  This  tendency, 
which  had  aroused  the  concern  of  Edwards  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  revivals,  was  largely  due,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  to  a  reaction  from  the  intense  preaching  of 
the  founders  of  New  England  and  especially  to  the  im- 
portance attached  by  the  ministry  of  the  second  and  third 
generations  to  use  of  "means."  It  was  a  school  which 
was  stimulated,  however,  by  the  course  of  Puritan  devel- 
opment in  England,  and  especially  by  the  writings  of  the 
prominent  Dissenters  of  the  eighteenth  century,  for  all 
through  the  colonial  period  the  degree  of  intercourse  be- 
tween the  Nonconformists  of  the  mother-country  and  the 
Congregationalists  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  was  very 
considerable. 

The  critical  tendency  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which 


268  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

doubted  so  much  that  the  seventeenth  century  had  held 
to  be  established,  which  gave  rise  to  Deism  and  Free- 
thinking,  affected  the  English  Dissenters  profoundly,  espe- 
cially during  that  period  of  low  spiritual  life  which  pre- 
ceded the  Wesleyan  revival.  Arminianism,  by  the  year 
1 700,  had  widely  invaded  English  Nonconformist  ranks. 
Arianism,  foreshadowed  by  Milton  and  Locke,  was  pre- 
sented in  1 702  by  Thomas  Emlyn,  once  a  Presbyterian 
minister  at  Dublin,  in  his  "  Humble  Inquiry  into  the  Script- 
ure Account  of  Jesus  Christ."  It  was  popularized  by 
William  Whiston  in  a  treatise  entitled  "  Primitive  Chris- 
tianity Revived"  of  1711  ;  and  was  set  forth  in  a  lofty 
and  seductive  form  by  the  distinguished  Anglican  divine, 
Samuel  Clarke,  in  his  "  Scripture  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  " 
in  1712.  Thus  advocated  by  distinguished  scholars  within 
and  without  the  Establishment,  it  found  its  chief  accept- 
ance among  the  English  Presbyterians,  by  some  of  whose 
pastors  it  was  adopted  by  i  71 7  ;  and  Arianism  soon  spread 
to  such  an  extent  throughout  that  denomination,  which 
had  been  the  largest  body  of  Nonconformists  at  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Toleration  Act,  that  by  1750  English  Presby- 
terianism  was  prevailingly  Arian,  and  half  a  century  later 
became  as  generally  Unitarian. 

English  Congregationalism  resisted  the  Arian  inroad, 
but  its  leaders,  like  Watts  and  Doddridge,  though  men  of 
warm  Christian  feeling,  defended  the  older  Puritan  Cal- 
vinism rather  feebly  in  the  face  of  the  rising  tide  of  Armin- 
ian  and  Arian  speculations.  In  their  reaction  from  the 
doctrinal  strenuousness  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  re- 
ligious classes  of  England,  and  especially  the  Dissenters, 
generally  inclined  to  look  upon  creeds  as  man-made  state- 
ments of  dubious  value,  and  claimed  a  large  degree  of 
tolerance  for  all  shades  of  religious  opinion.  The  favorite 
expression  of  the  time  was  that  questions  of  belief  should 


THE  LIBERALS.  269 

be  discussed  with  "  candor," — a  phrase  which  signified 
practically  that  no  sharp  points  of  doctrinal  definition 
should  be  obtruded.  The  works  of  the  leading  Church- 
men and  Nonconformists  were  read  by  the  ministry  of 
New  England.  English  Arianism  was  indeed  too  wide  a 
departure  from  New  England  doctrinal  positions  to  evoke 
much  sympathy,  though  it  was  not  without  fruit;  but  the 
less  radical  treatises  of  the  Nonconformists  made  much 
impression  on  the  American  mind,  especially  in  eastern 
Massachusetts,  a  region  which  by  reason  of  its  trade  and 
its  comparative  wealth  was  brought  into  closer  touch  with 
the  mother-country  than  the  rest  of  New  England. 

The  writings  of  two  English  divines  were  especially  in- 
fluential in  molding  the  "  Liberal  Theology  "  of  New  Eng- 
land at  the  period  of  the  Great  Awakening.  One  of  these 
was  an  Anglican  clergyman,  Daniel  Whitby  (1638— 1726), 
who  during  the  last  half-century  of  his  life  was  a  rector  at 
Salisbuiy.  Whitby  began  his  ministry  as  a  Calvinist,  but 
passed  to  Arminianism,  and  finally,  under  the  influence 
of  Clarke,  to  Arianism.  During  his  Arminian  period,  in 
1 7 10,  he  published  a  "  Discourse  "  on  the  five  Calvinistic 
points  which  was  four  times  republished  and  was  esteemed 
an  almost  unanswerable  argument  in  favor  of  the  Arminian 
view.  The  second  writer  was  even  more  influential.  John 
Taylor  (1694-1761)  was  a  Presbyterian  Arian  divine  of 
Norwich,  who  printed  a  treatise  on  "  The  Scripture  Doc- 
trine of  Original  Sin"  in  1738,  which  soon  ran  through 
five  editions;  a  "  Key  to  the  Apostolic  Writings  "  in  i  745  ; 
and  a  discussion  on  the  "  Scripture  Doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment"  in  1750.  These  tracts  were  written  in  a  remark- 
ably simple  and  comprehensible  style  and  appealed  dis- 
tinctly to  the  general  reader.  In  the  first,  Taylor  main- 
tained that  sorrow,  labor,  and  physical  death  were  the 
consequences  to  us  of  Adam's  transgression ;  but  we  are 


270  THE    CONGREGATIONA LISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

in  no  sense  guilty  of  Adam's  sin  ;  no  curse  was  pronounced 
upon  our  rational  powers;  each  of  us  is  fully  able  to  serve 
God,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  the  di\'ine  Spirit,  to  ob- 
tain "  Regeneration,  or  our  gaining  the  Habits  of  Virtue 
and  HoHness  " ;  and  the  aid  of  the  Spirit,  though  a  most 
valuable  help,  is  not  given  "  as  supposing  any  natural  Cor- 
ruption or  innate  Pravity  of  our  Minds."  In  the  last, 
Taylor  rejected  the  idea  that  Christ  suffered  to  satisfy 
divine  justice  or  endured  a  vicarious  punishment,  and  pre- 
sented a  conception  of  the  atonement  like  the  govern- 
mental theory  of  Grotius,  though  with  insistence  also  on 
the  moral  influence  upon  the  sinner  of  Christ's  death. 

The  first  New  England  work  of  importance  which  marked 
the  greater  definition  of  parties  consequent  upon  the  Great 
Awakening  was  Experience  Mayhew's  "  Grace  Defended," 
of  1 744.  Experience  Mayhew  was  a  worthy  member  of 
that  missionary  family  which  labored  for  five  generations 
for  the  spiritual  uplifting  of  the  Indians.  A  grandson  of 
the  younger  Thomas  Mayhew,  of  whom  mention  has  al- 
ready been  made,  he  spent  his  life  among  the  natives  of 
the  Martha's  Vineyard  group ;  and  though  thus  isolated 
and  without  a  college  training,  he  maintained  a  lively  in- 
terest in  New  England  religious  progress  and  won  recog- 
nition for  his  very  exceptional  talents.  In  his  treatise  of 
1 744  Mayhew  affirmed  himself  to  be  essentially  a  Calvinist, 
declaring  his  full  persuasion  "of  the  Truth  of  the  Doctrine 
of  God's  Decrees  of  Election  and  Reprobation,  as  the  same 
is  revealed  in  the  Scripture,  and  for  the  Substance,  as  it  is 
explained  in  our  Confessions  of  Faith."  But  his  conten- 
tion was  that  "  the  OflFer  of  Salvation  made  to  Sinners  in 
the  Gospel  comprises  in  it  the  Offer  of  the  Graces  given  in 
Regeneration,"  and  that  "  the  best  Actions  of  the  Unre- 
generate  are  not  properly  called  Sins,  nor  uncapable  of 
beine  Conditions  of  the  Covenant  of  Grace."     The  unre- 


MAYHEW  AND  BRIANT.  2'Jl 

generate  cannot  exercise  saving  grace,  but  they  can,  by- 
diligent  cultivation  of  the  "  means  of  grace,"  fulfill  the 
conditions  on  which  the  free  pardoning  grace  of  God 
which  will  effect  their  regeneration  is  bestowed. 

Perhaps  the  next  treatise  of  moment  as  indicating  the 
direction  in  which  some  men  in  eastern  Massachusetts  were 
moving  was  a  sermon  by  Rev.  Lemuel  Briant,  entitled 
"  The  Absurdity  and  Blasphemy  of  depretiating  Moral 
Virtue,"  preached,  among  other  places,  at  the  West 
Church,  Boston,  and  printed  in  1 749.  Briant  was  a  man 
of  twenty-seven,  of  brilliant  parts,  and  pastor  since  1  745 
of  the  church  of  that  portion  of  Braintree  which  is  now 
Quincy,  Mass.  Taking  as  his  text  the  much-abused  dec- 
laration of  Isaiah,  "  All  our  righteousnesses  are  as  filthy 
rags,"  he  affirmed  that  this  prophetic  utterance  was  never 
intended  to  be  a  description  "  of  the  personal  Righteous- 
ness of  truly  good  and  holy  Men."  On  the  contrar}^,  "  the 
great  Rule  the  Scriptures  lay  down  for  Men  to  go  by  in 
passing  Judgment  on  their  spiritual  State,  is  the  sincere, 
upright,  steady,  and  universal  Practice  of  Vertue."  Some 
might  object,  Briant  declared,  that  this  was  not  preaching 
Christ ;  but,  he  answered,  "  to  preach  up  chiefly  what 
Christ  himself  laid  the  chiefest  Stress  upon  (and  whether 
this  was  not  moral  Vertue,  let  every  One  judge  from  his 
Discourses)  must  certainly,  in  the  Opinion  of  all  sober  Men, 
be  called  truly  and  properly,  and  in  the  best  Sense,  preach- 
ing of  Christ." 

This  discourse  produced  immediate  reply.  Soon  after 
its  publication.  Rev.  John  Porter  of  what  is  now  North 
Bridgewater,  Mass.,  uttered  a  counterblast,  from  the  same 
text,  in  the  pulpit  of  another  Braintree  church,  which  was 
printed  in  1750  as  "The  Absurdity  and  Blasphemy  of 
substituting  the  personal  Righteousness  of  Men  in  the 
Room  of  the  Surety-Righteousness  of  Christ,  in  the  im- 


2  72  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vni. 

portant  Article  of  Justification  before  God."  To  this  ser- 
mon were  appended  the  attestations  of  five  of  Porter's 
ministerial  neighbors,  who  "  rejoyce  that  this  our  dear 
Brother  is  enabled  to  stand  up  in  Defence  of  the  Gospel ; 
and  .  .  .  lament  the  dreadful  Increase  of  Arminiasm  and 
other  Errors  in  the  Land,  among  Ministers  and  People." 
Rev.  Thomas  Foxcroft,  the  revivalistic  colleague  of  Dr. 
Chauncy  in  the  pastorate  of  the  Boston  First  Church,  also 
replied  to  Briant,  though  not  by  name,  "  at  the  Tuesday- 
Evening  Lecture  in  Brattle-Street,  Boston,  January  30, 
1749-50";  and  from  the  text  already  twice  preached  on 
in  the  discussion.  In  Foxcroft's  judgment  the  debate  was 
between  positions  essentially  Protestant  and  "  Popish." 
Briant  answered  Porter  at  once,  and  in  a  tone  of  irony, 
though  he  says  seriously  enough,  "  I  challenge  you  .  .  . 
to  point  out  a  single  Passage  in  my  Sermon  where  the 
Doctrine  of  Justification  by  the  merit  of  Man's  personal 
Righteousness  is  asserted.  .  .  .  All  I  contend  for  ...  is 
only  to  show  that  the  Prophet  did  not  design  to  brand  the 
Vertues  of  real  good  Men  with  this  odious  Character  of 
filthy  rags.  ...  I  say  expressly  .  .  .  Forgiveness  of  Sin 
and  final  Acceptance  with  the  Father  is  thro'  the  Merits 
of  the  Son.  .  .  .  But  I  always  tho't  that  so  far  as  any 
Man  is  pure  (let  it  be  in  a  greater  or  lesser  Degree)  he  is 
not  fihhy." 

But  Briant  aroused  other  opponents.  His  aged  neighbor 
in  the  Braintree  ministry,  Rev.  Samuel  Niles,  after  waiting 
in  ^•ain  for  a  "  laudable  Retraction,"  and  finding  instead 
that  Briant  resorted  to  "Banter,"  put  forth,  in  1752,  a 
lengthy  "  Vindication  of  Divers  important  Gospel-Doc- 
trines," in  which  he  accused  his  young  neighbor  of  omit- 
ting the  custom  of  catechising  children  practiced  by  former 
Braintree  pastors,  declared  that  the  much-disputed  sermon 
"  disavow'd   the  orthodox  commonly  received   Notions," 


BRI ANT'S   OPPONENTS.  273 

asserted  that  Briant  was  "  an  Arminian  or  worse,"  and 
affirmed  that  the  "  main  Design  "  of  the  present  Vindica- 
tion was  "  to  put  a  Stop  to  the  prevaihng  Contagion  of 
Arminian  Errors  and  other  loose  Opinions  among  us, 
which  threaten  to  banish  vital  Piety  out  of  the  Land." 
By  the  time  that  Niles  wrote,  Briant's  church  was  in  tur-^ 
moil,  and  in  the  closing  weeks  of  1752  a  council  tried  to 
heal  the  situation,  though  without  much  success.  A  more 
certain  termination  speedily  came  to  the  strife  as  far  as 
the  chief  actor  was  concerned.  In  October,  1753,  ill- 
health  compelled  Briant's  resignation,  and  a  year  later  he 
was  no  longer  of  the  living. 

This  story  has  been  told  at  some  length  because  it 
shows  the  type  of  discussion  which  prevailed  in  New  Eng- 
land in  the  decade  which  followed  the  Great  Awakening, 
and  because  it  reveals  also  the  incoming  of  a  presentation 
of  Christian  doctrine  akin  to  the  contemporary  views  of 
many  English  Nonconformists,  but  a  decided  departure 
from  the  historic  position  of  New  England.  Of  course 
matters  did  not  stop  here.  Eastern  Massachusetts  was 
in  a  general  doctrinal  ferment.  In  1757  Rev.  Samuel 
Webster,  a  Harvard  graduate  of  1737,  and  from  1741  to 
1796  pastor  at  Salisbury,  Mass.,  published  an  anonymous 
tract  entitled  "A  Winter  Evening's  Conversation  upon  the 
Doctrine  of  Original  Sin  .  .  .  wherein  the  Notion  of  our 
having  sinned  in  Adam,  and  being  on  that  Account  only 
hable  to  eternal  Damnation,  is  proved  to  be  unscriptural." 
This  leaflet,  which  bears  evidence  that  Webster  was  a 
student  of  Whitby's  and  Taylor's  writings,  was  reprinted 
the  same  year  at  New  Haven,  Conn.,  and,  if  one  can  judge 
by  the  commotion  which  it  created,  must  be  called 
"timely."  In  it  Webster  held  "that  even  supposing 
that,  which  cannot  be  proved,  that  Adam  was  our  federal 
head,  or  representative,   ...   we  only  suffer  the  ill  conse- 


2  74  ^-^-^   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

quences  of  his  folly ;  but  arc  not  .  .  .  chargeable  with  his 
sin;"  and  that  infants  are  "  as  blameless  as  helpless."  To 
Webster  Rev.  Peter  Clark,  a  Harvard  graduate  of  1712, 
and  a  much-respected  minister  at  Danvers,  Mass.,  till  his 
death  in  1768,  responded  in  1758  in  "A  Summer  Morn- 
ing's Conversation,"  fortified  with  a  preface  signed  by 
five  ministers  of  revivalistic  sympathies,  including  Joseph 
Sewall,  Thomas  Prince,  and  Thomas  Foxcroft,  of  Boston. 
In  this  reply  Clark  argued  at  much  length  in  support  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  inherent  depravity  of  human  nature  as 
a  consequence  of  Adam's  transgression;  and,  as  the  attes- 
tors expressed  it,  criticised  Webster  for  "  making  tragical 
Exclamations  against  the  Doctrine  of  Original  Sin  .  .  . 
as  if  it  imply'd,  that  Children  dying  in  Infancy  suffer  the 
eternal  Torments  of  Hell  for  the  first  Sin  of  Adam;  — 
when  it  is  well  known,  the  Patrons  of  that  Doctrine  are 
wont  to  leave  the  future  State  of  such  among  the  secret 
Things  which  belong  to  God  alone."  Clark  was  confident 
that  infants  were  not  liable  to  punishment. 

These  two  tracts  aroused  other  contestants.  Rev.  Joseph 
Bellamy,  the  distinguished  Edwardean  of  whom  there  will 
be  occasion  to  speak  later,  replied  anonymously  to  Web- 
ster in  1758,  in  a  dialogue  of  considerable  brilliancy, 
advocating  the  theory  of  the  imputation  of  Adam's  sin 
to  the  race,  and  called  attention  to  Edwards's  "  Original 
Sin  Defended,"  then  about  to  be  issued  from  the  press. 
Quite  a  different  contribution  to  the  debate  was  a  tract, 
also  anonymous,  by  the  anti-revivalist  Charles  Chauncy  of 
Boston,  in  criticism  of  Clark's  answer  to  Webster.  With 
a  good  deal  of  dialectic  ingenuity  Chauncy  turned  Clark's 
guns  by  asserting  that  "  this  Gentleman  [Clark],  no  more 
than  his  Antagonist  [Webster],  is  a  friend  to  the  Calvin- 
istical  doctrine,  as  it  maintains  the  liableness  of  all  Adam's 
posterity,  without  exception,  on  account  of  his  first  sin,  to 


DISCUSSION  ON  ORIGINAL   SIN.  275 

the  eternal  damnation  of  hell,"  thus  accusing  Clark  of 
treachery  to  Calvinism  in  admitting  the  general  salvation 
of  infants.  Other  pamphlets  by  the  principals  in  the  de- 
bate and  by  two  more  anonymous  writers  followed ;  but 
the  most  important  publication  on  this  theme  at  the  time 
was  the  work  of  Edwards  which  Bellamy  had  announced. 
Edwards's  elaborate  treatise  on  Original  Sin  was  begun 
and  perhaps  finished  before  Webster  put  forth  his  tract. 
It  is  an  answer  to  the  writings  of  John  Taylor,  the  English 
Presbyterian  Arian  whose  works  have  already  been  spoken 
of,  and  who  furnished  most  of  Webster's  ammunition, 
rather  than  to  the  American  deniers  of  original  sin.  But 
the  occasion  of  its  publication  at  this  time  rather  than 
several  other  important  works  which  Edwards  held  in 
manuscript  was  doubtless  this  discussion.  It  was  passing 
through  the  press  when  Edwards  died,  in  the  spring  of 
1758.  In  this  lengthy  essay  Edwards  asserts  that  the 
universal  prevalence  of  original  sin  is  taught  by  experi- 
ence and  by  the  Scriptures.  All  mankind  are  by  nature 
corrupt  at  whatever  stage  of  their  existence  from  infancy 
to  old  age.  But  the  most  peculiar  portion  of  Edwards's 
argument  is  that  in  which  he  explains  the  nature  of  the 
Adamic  relation.  That  primal  sin  is  ours ;  but  not  by 
reason  of  any  Augustinian  existence  of  the  sum  of  human 
nature  in  Adam.  That  which  preserves  personal  identity, 
which  makes  the  man  of  to-day  the  same  being  that  sinned 
or  was  virtuous  yesterday,  is  simply  the  constant  creative 
activity  of  God.  God,  by  a  "  constitution  "  or  arrange- 
ment of  things  that  is  "  arbitrary  "  in  the  sense  that  it  de- 
pends on  his  will  alone,  sees  fit  to  appoint  that  the  acts 
and  thoughts  of  the  present  moment  shall  be  consciously 
continuous  with  those  of  the  past ;  and  it  is  this  ever- 
renewed  creation  that  gives  all  personal  identity  to  the  in- 
dividual.     In  a  similar  way  God  has  constituted  the  whole 


276  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

race  one  with  Adam,  so  that  his  sin  is  really  theirs  and 
they  are  viewed  as  "  sinners,  truly  guilty  and  children  of 
wrath  on  that  account."  This  may  indeed  come  peril- 
ously near  the  verge  of  ascribing  to  God  the  authorship 
of  sin ;  but  it  reveals  a  thinker  of  vastly  greater  powers 
than  Taylor  or  Webster  or  Clark. 

These  discussions  reveal  a  good  deal  of  breaking  down  of 
the  old  Calvinism,  especially  in  eastern  Massachusetts,  but 
other  divines  of  that  region  went  considerably  further  in 
their  criticism.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Lemuel  Briant's 
sermon  of  1 749  was  preached  to  the  West  Church  at  Boston. 
The  pastor  of  that  church  from  i  747  to  his  death  at  the  age 
of  forty-five  in  1766  was  Jonathan  Mayhew,  son  of  Expe- 
rience May  hew,  whose  "  Grace  Defended  "  has  already 
been  spoken  of.  Mayhew  was  a  man  of  most  brilliant 
qualities,  though  too  arrogant  in  discussion ;  a  correspond- 
ent with  prominent  English  Dissenters;  and  one  of  the 
earliest  of  the  American  patriots  who  foresaw  and  pre- 
pared the  public  mind  for  the  revolutionary  struggle — a 
friend  of  Otis  and  the  Adamses.  He  was  a  marked  man 
in  every  respect.  Already  at  his  settlement  rumors  ac- 
cusing him  of  doctrinal  unsoundness  were  rife,  and  sev- 
eral of  the  churches  invited  preferred  not  to  be  repre- 
sented in  the  council  by  which  the  pastoral  relation  was 
established ;  but  he  gained  public  respect  as  a  preacher  of 
power,  and  grew  to  be  a  force  in  the  town  of  his  residence. 
Among  his  voluminous  publications  were  a  series  of  "  Ser- 
mons "  issued  at  Boston  in  1 755  and  reprinted  at  London  a 
year  later.  In  these  discourses  Mayhew  inveighed  against 
"Creeds  of  human  composition";  but  his  chief  endeavor 
was  to  explain  the  method  of  salvation.  The  discussion  led 
him  to  elaborate  and  carry  much  further  the  principles  laid 
down  by  his  father.  "  Those  who  imagine,"  he  declared, 
"  that,  because  we  are  saved  by  grace,  obedience  to  the 


JONA  THAN  MA  YHE  W.  277 

gospel  is  not  necessary,  as  the  condition  on  our  part,  in 
order  to  salvation,  draw  a  conclusion  which  is  very  unnat- 
ural." To  the  objection  that  to  assert  this  condition  was 
to  exalt  human  merit,  Mayhew  replied :  "  Good  men  may 
so  far  trust  to  their  own  righteousness,  as  to  believe  it  will 
be  available  with  a  gracious  God,  thro'  the  Mediator;  so 
as  to  procure  eternal  life  for  them." 

But  the  chief  innovation  advanced  by  Mayhew  in  these 
sermons  was  his  view  of  the  Trinity.  On  that  doctrine 
he  was  a  high  Arian  of  the  school  of  the  English  divine, 
Samuel  Clarke.  "  Tho'  our  obedience  as  Christians,"  he 
told  his  hearers,  "  is  due  more  immediately  to  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  .  .  .  yet  it  is  ultimately  referred  to  His 
Father  and  our  Father,  to  His  God  and  our  God ;  who  '  is 
greater  than  ALL  ' ;  and  who  has  conferred  this  dignity 
and  authority  on  the  Son."  "The  Dominion  and  Sover- 
eignty of  the  universe  is  necessarily  one,  and  in  ONE ;  the 
only  living  and  true  GOD,  who  delegates  such  measures 
of  power  and  authority  to  other  Beings,  as  seemeth  good 
in  his  sight ;  but  '  will  not  give  his  peculiar  glory  to  an- 
other.' Our  blessed  Saviour  does  indeed  assert  the  rights 
and  prerogatives  of  his  own  crown ;  but  never  usurped 
those  of  his  Father." 

A  more  pronouncedly  Arian  footnote  with  which  the 
passage  in  which  these  statements  occur  was  accompanied 
aroused  the  anxiety  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  was  fur- 
ther moved  by  the  anonymous  publication  of  a  reprint  of 
Emlyn's  Arian  treatise  of  1702,  the  "Humble  Inquiry," 
at  Boston  in  1756.  Edwards  therefore  wrote  to  Prof. 
Edward  Wigglesworth,  HoUis  Professor  of  Divinity  at 
Harvard,  in  February,  i  757,  asking  him  to  take  up  the  cud- 
gels against  Mayhew.  But  though  Wigglesworth  sympa- 
thized in  the  main  with  Edwards  he  did  not  feel  a  necessity 
of  engaging  in  the  struggle  to  which  he  was  thus  exhorted. 


278  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  vm. 

Though  Mayhew  was  the  most  pronounced,  he  was  not 
the  only  sympathizer  with  Arian  views  among  the  ministry 
of  eastern  Massachusetts.  When  the  Unitarian  struggle 
was  at  its  height  in  181 5,  President  John  Adams  stated 
that  "sixty-five  years  ago"  (i.e.,  about  1750)  Lemuel 
Briant  of  Braintree,  Ebenezer  Gay  and  Daniel  Shute  of 
Hingham,  and  John  Brown  of  Cohasset,  besides  Mayhew, 
"  were  Unitarians.*'  Probably  this  description  is  a  little 
overdrawn,  for  even  Mayhew  does  not  appear  to  be  more 
than  a  high  Arian  in  his  writings ;  but  that  the  full  divin- 
ity of  Christ  was  being  questioned  considerably  widely 
there  is  ample  evidence.  In  1768  Rev.  Samuel  Hopkins, 
the  distinguished  disciple  of  Edwards,  preached  a  sermon 
at  Boston  on  the  Character  of  Christ,  which  is  largely  an 
answer  to  Arian  positions,  and  which  he  said  he  wrote 
"  under  a  conviction  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Divinity  of 
Christ  was  much  neglected,  if  not  disbelieved,  by  a  num- 
ber of  ministers  in  Boston."  In  a  note  to  this  discourse 
Hopkins  remarked :  "  I  desire  it  may  be  considered, 
whether  the  ordaining  councils  who  neglect  to  examine 
candidates  for  the  ministry,  with  respect  to  their  religious 
sentiments,  and  they  who  zealously  oppose  such  exami- 
nations, do  not  bj'  this  conduct  openly  declare  that  it  is 
with  them  no  matter  of  importance  what  men  believe;" 
thus  implying  that  much  laxity  in  this  particular  already 
prevailed.  Nor  were  Arian  views  confined  to  the  imme- 
diate vicinity  of  Boston.  In  1757  a  council  called  to  in- 
vestigate charges  of  unsoundness  preferred  against  Rev. 
John  Rogers  of  Leominster,  Mass.,  found  that  he  did  not 
"  hold  or  believe  the  essential  Divinity  of  Christ  "  ;  and  in 
1758  he  was  dismissed.  In  1760,  in  a  pamphlet  wherein 
Bellamy  attacked  the  theory  that  creeds  as  a  test  of  ortho- 
doxy should  be  abandoned,  which  Rev.  James  Dana  had 
broup-ht  with   him   from   his   home   under  the   shadow  of 


ARIAN   VIEWS.  279 

Harvard  College  to  Wallingford,  Conn.,  and  which  found 
other  defenders,  the  Edwardean  champion  charged  that 
the  liberal  party  in  New  Hampshire  "  actually,  three  years 
ago,  .  .  .  ventured  to  new  model  our  shorter  catechism, 
to  alter,  or  entirely  leave  out  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity, 
of  the  decrees  ...  of  original  sin,  .  „  .  and  to  adjust 
the  whole  to  Dr.  Taylor's  scheme."  A  catechism,  appar- 
ently the  one  thus  described,  was  issued  at  Portsmouth  in 
April,  1757. 

It  is  evident  that  twenty  years  after  the  Great  Awak- 
ening Arminian  and  even  Arian  opinions  were  somewhat 
extensively  disseminated  in  eastern  Massachusetts,  and 
were  supported  by  men  of  ability  and  character.  It  is 
clear,  too,  that  a  large  part  of  the  stimulus  toward  such 
ideas  came  from  the  writings  of  thinkers  across  the  Atlan- 
tic who  had  trod  the  same  path  from  Calvinism  to  Liberal 
Theology  somewhat  earlier.  But  it  is  no  less  manifest 
that  the  development  of  some  of  the  Puritan  churches  in 
America,  especially  some  of  those  that  most  opposed  the 
revival  movement,  had  been  leading  them  independently 
to  results  similar  to  those  reached  by  the  Presbyterian 
Puritans  in  England.  That  the  development  of  Liberal 
Theology,  in  its  outward  manifestations,  was  not  more 
rapid  after  1765,  and  that  Unitarianism  did  not  become  a 
recognized  power  till  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury, was  due  in  a  measure  to  the  early  deaths  of  May- 
hew  and  of  Briant,  but  even  more  to  the  great  political 
struggle  which  absorbed  the  thought  of  New  England  for 
more  than  twenty  years.  Men  gave  little  heed  to  theol- 
ogy. But  the  type  of  belief  that  Mayhew  and  his  sym- 
pathizers represented  quietly  spread,  till  forty  years  after 
his  death  it  was  that  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  churches 
of  eastern  Massachusetts. 

In  polar  opposition  to  these  Liberal  Theologians  stood 


28o  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [CiiAr.  viii. 

the  school  of  Edwards, — that  of  the  so-called  "  New 
Divinity."  The  leaders  in  this  movement  were  a  re- 
markably able  and  strongly  individual  group  of  eight 
men,  seven  of  them  of  Connecticut  blood,  and  all  except 
one  trained  at  Yale  College.  All  were  warm  sympathiz- 
ers with  the  "  New  Light "  party,  though  the  five  younger 
members  were  not  actively  contemporary  with  the  Great 
Awakening.  They  were  Jonathan  Edwards  and  his  two 
immediate  friends,  Joseph  Bellamy  and  Samuel  Hopkins; 
and  the  later  representatives  of  the  same  impulse,  Stephen 
West,  John  Smalley,  Jonathan  Edwards  the  younger,  Na- 
thanael  Emmons,  and  Timothy  Dwight. 

Of  the  early  life  of  Jonathan  Edwards  mention  has 
already  been  made,  and  his  share  in  the  revival  movement 
has  already  been  pointed  out.  A  man  of  more  metaphys- 
ical genius  than  any  other  American,  Edwards  was  a  force 
such  as  few  men  have  been  in  molding  the  thoughts  of  his 
friends  and  of  three  generations  of  the  religious  body  to 
which  he  belonged.  He  was  a  man  of  warm  friendships  ; 
but,  in  spite  of  his  remarkable  ability  as  a  preacher,  he 
was  always  something  of  the  student  rather  than  the  man 
of  affairs  in  dealing  with  his  associates,  and  an  autocratic 
strain  inherited  from  his  father  gave  him  less  of  the  sym- 
pathy of  his  ministerial  neighbors  than  might  otherwise 
have  been  his.  A  serious  case  of  church  discipline,  and 
even  more  the  hostile  stand  which  the  growing  clearness 
of  his  own  conception  of  the  conditions  of  entrance  into 
the  kingdom  of  God  induced  him  to  take  more  than  twenty 
years  after  his  settlement  against  the  "  Stoddardean  "  sys- 
tem introduced  by  his  grandfather  and  practiced  in  his 
own  early  ministry,  led  to  his  dismission  from  Northamp- 
ton under  very  trying  circumstances  in  1750.  This  event 
was  followed,  in  1751,  by  his  settlement  in  the  then  fron- 
tier town  of  Stockbridge  as  pastor  of  the  church  and  mis- 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  28  I 

sionary  to  the  Housatonic  Indians ;  and  here  he  spent 
nearly  seven  years  of  great  intellectual  productiveness. 
Early  in  1758  he  accepted  a  call  to  the  presidency  of 
Princeton  College,  an  institution  in  hearty  sympathy  with 
the  "New  Light"  party;  but  he  died,  March  22,  1758, 
just  as  he  was  entering  on  his  new  duties. 

Edwards  was  a  mystic  and  a  seer  as  well  as  a  dialectic 
theologian ;  and  partly  by  reason  of  this  manifoldness  of 
his  nature,  partly  because  death  interrupted  him  in  his 
labors,  his  system  was  not  fully  worked  out  on  all  points 
nor  made  in  all  respects  logically  consistent.  But  no 
small  share  of  his  power  over  those  who  have  come  in 
contact  with  him  and  with  his  writings  is  the  feeling  that 
he  awakens  that  one  is  dealing  not  merely  with  an  intel- 
lect of  marvelous  acuteness,  but  with  a  soul  stirred  by 
profound  religious  emotions,  and  a  spirit  that  in  a  pecu- 
liar degree  seemed  to  walk  with  God.  It  is  a  perception 
of  this  spiritual  many-sidedness  that  has  led  others  than 
those  of  the  theological  lineage  that  bears  his  name  to  lay 
claim  to  him  as  the  master-key  that  unlocks  the  meaning 
of  the  most  various  tendencies  in  the  later  history  of  New 
England  thought.  But  whatever  germs  of  diverse  fruitage 
may  have  been  wrapped  up  in  the  profundities  of  his 
speculations,  Edwards  stands  historically  as  the  founder 
of  a  school  of  definite  tendencies  and  easily  recognized  in- 
fluence on  New  England  theology  and  life.  He  aimed  to 
raise  up  Calvinism,  then  sore  pressed  by  the  Arminian 
school  of  Whitby  and  Taylor ;  and  he  sought  this  restora- 
tion not  because  of  any  devotion  to  Calvinism  as  a  system 
long  maintained  in  the  churches,  but  because  the  center 
of  his  own  religious  experience,  like  that  of  Calvin,  was 
the  recognition  of  the  sovereignty  of  God.  Yet  he  was 
equally  convinced  that  Calvinism  needed  to  be  modified 
so  that  the  responsibility  of  man  should  be  more  clearly 


282  THE    COXGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

taught.  And  a  second  aim  was  no  less  evidently  his, 
Edwards  sought  to  foster  a  warm,  emotional  type  of 
Christian  character,  touched  and  vivified  by  a  sense  of 
immediate  communion  between  God  and  the  human  soul. 

Edwards's  publications  numbered  twenty-seven  in  his 
lifetime,  and  nine  volumes  from  his  pen  have  been  printed 
since  his  death,  w^hile  it  is  said  that  even  more  material 
than  has  ever  been  published  still  remains  in  the  volu- 
minous manuscript  fragments  on  which  he  recorded  his 
thoughts.  Five  works,  however,  may  be  readily  selected 
as  the  most  characteristic. 

The  first  of  these  publications  of  prime  importance  was 
Edwards's  "  Treatise  Concerning  Religious  Aff"ections,"  of 
I  746.  It  is  a  garnering  up  of  the  best  results  of  the  revival 
upon  the  author's  thought  regarding  the  problem  which 
that  movement  had  made  prominent, — what  are  the  char- 
acteristics of  true  personal  religion.  Edwards  includes  the 
will  as  well  as  the  emotions  in  his  conception  of  the  affec- 
tions. His  work  is  a  profound,  somewhat  mystical  plea 
for  the  primacy  of  the  emotions,  and  chief  of  all  love,  in 
religion ;  a  warning  against  mistaken  tests  and  signs  of 
Christian  character ;  and  a  definition  of  the  nature  of  those 
affections  which  constitute  the  essence  of  personal  godli- 
ness. The  Holy  Spirit  does  indeed  operate  on  and  over- 
rule the  actions  of  all  men,  but  he  enters  into  indwelling 
union  only  with  the  saints ;  by  his  power  men  are  led  to  a 
new  attitude  of  heart  toward  God,  impossible  for  them  to 
conceive  in  their  natural  state,  but  implying  no  new  facul- 
ties of  the  soul  not  possessed  before.  This  new  attitude 
induces  men  to  love  God,  not  for  any  self-interest,  but  out 
of  delight  in  his  holiness ;  and  from  this  primal  love  to  God 
all  other  Christian  virtues  flow. 

Holding  such  lofty  views  as  to  the  essence  of  the  Chris- 
tian life,  and  so  convinced  of  the  spiritual  worthlessness  of 


EDWARDS'S    WRITINGS.  283 

all  that  fell  short  of  it,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Edwards  was 
led  to  renounce  "  Stoddardeanism  "  and  the  Half- Way 
Covenant  with  their  admission  of  non- regenerate  men  to 
the  sacraments,  as  he  did  in  his  second  work  of  moment, 
the  "  Humble  Inquiry  .  .  .  Concerning  the  Qualifications 
Requisite  to  .   .   .  full  Communion,"  issued  in  1749. 

But  the  most  famous  of  Edwards's  treatises  was  one 
written  in  his  Stockbridge  sojourn  and  published  in  1754, 
— his  "  Careful  and  Strict  Enquiry  into  the  modern  prevail- 
ing Notions  of  Freedom  of  Will."  In  this  work  Edwards 
sought  to  defend  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  complete 
sovereignty  of  God  in  conversion  against  Arminianism  of 
the  school  of  Whitby,  by  maintaining  that  human  freedom 
implies  simply  the  natural  power  to  act  in  accordance  with 
the  choice  of  the  mind.  With  the  origin  of  the  incli- 
nation man  has  nothing  to  do.  Man  is  free  to  do  as  he 
chooses,  as  free  now  as  ever  he  was,  but  not  free  to  bend 
his  inclinations  hither  and  thither.  The  action  of  the  will 
always  follows  the  strongest  choice,  and  follows  it  freely ; 
but  that  inclination  is  determined  by  what  seems  the  high- 
est good.  While  man  has  full  natural  power  to  serve  God, 
— that  is,  could  follow  freely  a  choice  to  serve  God  if  he 
had  such  an  inclination, — he  will  not  serve  God  till  God 
reveals  himself  to  him  as  his  highest  good  and  thus  ren- 
ders the  choice  of  obedience  to  God  man's  strongest  de- 
termination. Moral  responsibility  lies  in  the  choice,  not 
in  the  cause  of  the  choice ;  and  hence  a  man  of  evil  incli- 
nation is  to  be  condemned,  since  choice  is  his  own  act, 
even  though  the  direction  in  which  the  choices  are  exer- 
cised is  not  under  his  determination.  Man  cannot  choose 
between  various  possible  choices ;  nor  can  his  choice  origi- 
nate without  some  impelling  cause;  but  his  will  acts  in 
the  direction  in  which  it  desires  to  move  and  is  not  forced 
to  act  counter  to  its  inclination.     This   philosophic  con- 


284  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viir. 

ception,  by  which  Edwards  believed  that  he  had  demon- 
strated the  absolute  control  of  God  while  leaving  freedom 
and  responsibility  to  man,  had  its  immediate  philosophi- 
cal antecedents  in  the  speculations  of  Locke,  Hobbes,  and 
Collins,  though  Edwards  appears  to  have  known  only  the 
writings  of  the  first-named  thinker;  but  Edwards's  own 
use  of  these  ideas  was  profoundly  original,  and  the  work 
was  long  regarded  by  most  Calvinists  in  America  and 
Scotland  as  an  unanswerable  critique  of  the  Arminian 
position. 

The  fourth  work  of  special  moment  which  Edwards 
issued  was  that  "  Christian  Doctrine  of  Original  Sin  de- 
fended "  which  appeared  in  1758.  The  peculiar  argu- 
ment by  which  he  attempts  to  show  the  unity  of  the  race 
with  Adam  by  a  divine  constitution  or  appointment  has 
already  been  noticed. 

A  final  volume  deserves  particular  attention, — that 
containing  Edwards's  essay  on  "  The  Nature  of  true  Vir- 
tue "  which  was  published  in  1765,  though  written  about 
ten  years  earlier.  To  his  thinking,  virtue  is  essentially 
benevolence,  or  love  to  intelligent  being  in  general.  God 
as  the  absolutely  infinite  and  perfect  being  is  the  object  of 
the  highest  love  ;  men  are  objects  of  a  real  though  far  lesser 
love.  The  characteristic  of  this  benevolence  is  that  it 
seeks  "  the  highest  good  of  Being  in  general.  And  it  will 
seek  the  good  of  every  individual  Being  unless  it  be  con- 
ceived as  not  consistent  with  the  highest  good  of  Being 
in  general."  Should  any  individual  being  be  hostile  to 
this  general  good,  true  virtue  must  of  necessity  oppose 
him  and  take  satisfaction  in  his  punishment.  A  second 
and  inferior  characteristic  of  virtue  is  the  attraction  which 
one  possessed  of  general  benevolence  feels  toward  any 
other  being  who  is  animated  by  a  like  spirit.  The  actual 
exercise  of  benevolence  brings  a  perception  of  spiritual 


EDIVARDS'S    WRITINGS.  285 

beauty  and  joy  which  no  other  experience  can  equal. 
Self-love  is  the  opposite  of  love  for  being  in  general  and 
hence  is  hostile  to  true  virtue.  Of  course  virtue  in  God 
is  the  same  in  essence  as  in  his  creatures, — it  is  benevo- 
lence which  leads  him  to  seek  what  his  wisdom  declares  is 
the  highest  good  of  being  in  general,  or  of  the  universe  as 
a  whole.  But,  as  Edwards  shows  in  his  treatise  "  Con- 
cerning the  End  for  which  God  created  the  World,"  which 
was  printed  with  his  essay  on  virtue,  the  manifestation  of 
this  benevolence  is  somewhat  different  in  God  from  what 
it  is  in  men.  God,  as  the  being  before  whose  infinity  the 
sum  total  of  other  being  is  infinitesimal,  in  manifesting 
benevolence  to  being  in  general,  naturally  and  unselfishly 
loves  himself  and  seeks  primarily  his  own  glory. 

It  is  evident,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  while  Ed- 
wards exalted  the  divine  sovereignty  in  creation,  provi- 
dence, and  redemption  to  a  higher  degree  than  the  Cal- 
vinism of  the  day  had  been  accustomed  to  do,  he  also 
emphasized  four  positions  which  were  essentially  a  de- 
parture from  that  historic  Calvinism.  The  first  was  his 
insistence  on  the  possession  by  the  sinner  of  a  natural 
ability  to  do  the  will  of  God,  thus  placing  the  sinner's 
inability  to  obey  God  not  in  lack  of  power,  but  in  lack 
of  inclination.  This  doctrine  emphasized  a  change  of  the 
sinner's  disposition  or  "  heart,"  as  not  only  the  primary, 
but  the  only  important  thing  in  beginning  a  Christian  life. 
It  laid  stress  on  "conversion";  it  depreciated  the  value 
of  "  means,"  since  by  undue  reliance  on  "  means  "  a  sinner 
might  be  kept  back  from  that  full  surrender  to  God  which 
was  his  first  duty.  It  also,  though  unintentionally,  tended 
to  lessen  the  importance  attached  to  the  covenant  relation 
of  birth  in  a  Christian  family  and  of  baptism,  through  the 
stress  which  it  put  on  "  conversion  "  rather  than  on  Chris- 
tian nurture.     A  second  characteristic  feature  of  Edwards's 


286  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

system  was  his  theory  of  virtue,  making  it  consist  in  dis- 
interested benevolence, — in  a  love  to  being  in  general 
which  is  primarily  that  self-forgetful  love  to  God  which 
Edwards  regarded  as  the  essence  of  the  religious  life.  In 
the  third  place,  Edwards  maintained  that  the  divine  action 
in  salvation  and  punishment  alike  flowed  from  a  single 
principle,  that  of  a  wise  benevolence  to  the  universe  as  a 
whole,  which  is  at  the  same  time  a  manifestation  of  his 
own  glory.  And  finally  Edwards  represented  the  preser- 
vation of  identity  in  the  individual  and  of  unity  in  the  race 
as  the  effect  of  a  divine  constitution  which  was  a  constantly 
renewed  manifestation  of  creative  activity.  But,  besides 
these  evident  features  of  his  system,  Edwards  dropped 
many  hints  and  half-elaborated  suggestions  regarding 
other  doctrines,  like  that  of  the  atonement,  which  made 
his  work  the  beginning  of  a  development  carried  much 
further  by  his  followers,  rather  than  the  framing  of  a  sys- 
tem to  be  accepted  as  a  completed  whole. 

The  elder  of  the  two  immediate  disciples  of  Edwards 
and  contemporaries  of  his  later  years  was  Joseph  Bellamy, 
a  native  in  17 19  of  what  is  now  Cheshire,  Conn.,  a  grad- 
uate of  Yale  in  the  class  of  1735,  and  from  1738  to  his 
death,  in  1 790,  the  minister  of  the  little  town  of  Bethlem, 
Conn., — a  rural  parish  which  he  might  have  exchanged, 
had  he  been  willing  to  do  so,  for  a  New  York  City  pulpit. 
Bellamy  was  from  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  a  warm 
personal  friend  of  Edwards.  He  was  the  most  gifted 
preacher  of  any  of  the  Edwardeans, — a  man  of  unusual 
pulpit  abilities ;  and  he  threw  himself  heartily  in  the  re- 
vivalistic  current  of  the  Great  Awakening,  becoming,  for 
two  years,  an  indefatigable  itinerant  evangelist.  But  his 
chief  fame  was  as  a  writer  and  especially  as  a  controver- 
sialist. He  argued  in  his  sermons  of  1758  on  "The  Wis- 
dom of  God,  in  the  Permission  of  Sin,"  that  though  sin 


JOSEPH  BELLAMY.  287 

was  in  itself  a  terrible  evil,  it  was  allowed  by  God  as  a 
necessary  means  of  the  best  good  of  the  universe  as  a 
whole.  In  a  discourse  of  the  same  year  on  "  The  Divinity 
of  Jesus  Christ"  he  defended  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
which  Mayhew  had  attacked.  In  a  series  of  dialogues  and 
tracts  in  1769  and  1770  he  attacked  the  Half- Way  Cove- 
nant, which  Edwards  had  opposed,  and  did  more  than  any 
other  man  to  bring  about  its  abandonment.  He  was  an 
ungenerous  but  most  effective  champion  of  the  "  New 
Divinity  "  ;  and  it  was  largely  by  his  blows  and  criticisms 
that  opposition  to  it  in  Connecticut  was  broken  down. 
Bellamy's  most  lengthy  and  most  popular  work, — next  to 
Edwards's  "Affections"  the  most  generally  influential 
book  put  forth  by  the  Edwardean  school, — was  his  "  True 
Religion  Delineated,"  of  1750,  which  Edwards  read  in 
manuscript  and  warmly  commended  in  print.  It  is  a 
vivacious,  readable,  yet  severely  logical  presentation  of  the 
plan  of  salvation  and  of  the  Christian  life  substantially  as 
Edwards  conceived  them.  Bellamy's  most  marked  doc- 
trinal advance  over  his  teacher  is  his  clear  assertion  of  a 
general  atonement.  Edwards  had  inclined  to  the  limited 
atonement  theory ;  but  the  view  of  Bellamy  became  that 
of  the  "  New  Divinity,"  and  a  further  point  of  rupture  with 
the  older  Calvinism. 

All  this  influence  was  multiplied  in  the  case  of  Bellamy 
by  the  reproduction  of  his  theories  in  the  teaching  of 
numerous  pupils.  Bellamy's  home  practically  became  a 
theological  seminary,  in  which  more  ministerial  candidates 
were  trained  than  in  the  house  of  any  other  New  England 
minister  except  that  of  Emmons, — probably  not  less  than 
sixty, — and  almost  every  one  of  them  bore  the  distinct 
stamp  of  his  system. 

Edwards's  younger  disciple  and  most  intimate  personal 
friend  was  Samuel  Hopkins, — not  an  interesting  preacher 


288  THE   CONGREGATIONALISrS.  [Chap.  vm. 

like  Bellamy,  nor  so  vivacious  a  writer,  but  a  controver- 
sialist of  even  greater  power,  and  a  theological  thinker  who 
developed  certain  features  of  Edwards's  teachings  so  fully 
that  his  own  name  was  often  given  to  the  ultra- Edwardean 
school  of  which  he  was  the  founder.  A  man  of  great  nat- 
ural modesty,  of  self-denying  Christian  life,  and  one  of  the 
earliest  of  the  New  England  opponents  of  human  slavery, 
his  personal  character  always  commanded  respect ;  but  his 
theological  opinions  were  assailed  and  defended  with  the 
utmost  bitterness. 

Hopkins  was  born,  in  1721,  at  Waterbury,  Conn.,  and, 
after  graduating  at  Yale  with  the  class  of  1741,  studied 
divinity  in  the  household  of  Edwards  at  Northampton 
during  the  later  months  of  the  Great  Awakening.  He 
then  became  the  pastor  at  what  is  now  Great  Barrington, 
Mass.,  from  1743  to  1769,  being  for  seven  years  a  near 
ministerial  neighbor  of  Edwards  while  the  latter  was  at 
Stockbridge.  In  1770  Hopkins  undertook  the  charge  of 
the  First  Congregational  Church  at  Newport,  R.  I.,  and  in 
that  office  he  remained  till  his  death,  in  1803. 

The  theologic  positions  most  characteristically  associated 
with  Hopkins's  teachings  were  all  of  them  extensions  of 
the  theories  of  Edwards, — especially  of  Edwards's  con- 
ception of  "benevolence"  as  the  essence  of  true  virtue. 
Hopkins  held  that  though  man  has  entire  natural  free- 
dom, and  ought  therefore  to  be  exhorted  instantly  to  re- 
pent, the  elective  and  directing  power  of  God  overrules 
all  his  choices,  whether  good  or  evil ;  and  since  God  acts 
on  the  principle  of  benevolence,  or  the  largest  good  of 
being  in  general,  God  has  not  permitted  any  greater  amount 
of  sin  than  he  sees  is  for  the  interest  of  the  universe, — 
though  this  divinely  wise  permission  of  sin  renders  it  no 
less  evil  in  the  sinner. 

In  the  individual    this   benevolence,  as  with  Edwards, 


SAMUEL   HOPKINS.  28q 

takes  the  form  of  a  preference  for  the  glory  of  God.  Sin 
is  selfishness.  And  hence  the  test  of  a  true  Christian  is  a 
willing  and  disinterested  submission  to  the  divine  disposal. 
A  soul  is  really  submissive  when  it  is  content  that  God 
shall  do  with  it  what  he  deems  for  the  best  interest  of  the 
universe  as  a  whole,  even  if  that  disposal  be  its  damna- 
tion. This  doctrine  of  unconditional  resignation,  so  foreign 
to  the  feelings  of  most  Christians,  was  not  original  with 
Hopkins ;  to  say  nothing  of  theologians  in  other  branches 
of  the  church,  it  had  been  held  by  Hooker  and  Shepard 
in  the  early  days  of  New  England.  It  was  a  natural  de- 
velopment from  the  principles  of  the  Edwardean  school ; 
but  as  one  reads  the  account  which  Mrs.  Edwards  gave  of 
the  profound  religious  experience  which  she  underwent  in 
the  early  weeks  of  1742, — an  experience  turning  on  this 
resolution  of  absolute  submission, — one  wonders  whether 
the  impressionable  young  theological  student,  then  an  in- 
mate of  the  Northampton  home,  may  not  have  received 
something  of  his  inclination  toward  this  test  of  Christian 
character  from  the  mystical,  exalted,  and  winsome  wife  of 
his  instructor. 

In  Hopkins's  system  this  doctrine  of  benevolence  led  to 
a  third  conclusion,  approached  but  not  fully  reached  by 
Edwards.  God  has  made  no  promises  to  the  efforts  of 
the  unregenerate.  The  first  duty  is  submission  to  the 
divine  will ;  till  that  is  rendered  all  acts  are  essentially 
selfish  and  sinful,  and  tend  to  harden  the  sinner  in  oppo- 
sition to  God.  Hence,  as  Hopkins  expressed  it,  "  the  un- 
regenerate, under  the  greatest  convictions,  and  in  all  their 
external  reformations  and  doings,  are  more  criminal  and 
guilty  than  they  were  in  a  state  of  security."  "The  im- 
penitent sinner,  who  continues  obstinately  to  reject  and 
oppose  the  salvation  offered  in  the  gospel,  does  .  .  .  be- 
come, not  less,  but  more  vicious  and  guilty  in  God's  sight, 


290  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

the  more  instruction  and  knowledge  he  gets  in  attendance 
on  the  means  of  grace."  Yet  "  means  "  are  desirable  and 
even  essential  to  a  proper  understanding  of  a  man's  sinful 
condition  and  the  way  of  salvation ;  but  they  have  no 
power  in  themselves  to  make  a  man  better. 

Closely  connected  with  this  doctrine  is  another  feature 
of  Hopkins's  system  which  was  carried  much  further  by 
his  pupil,  Emmons,  a  feature  having  its  roots  ultimately  in 
the  speculations  of  Edwards  on  the  will  and  virtue.  All 
moral  qualities,  according  to  Hopkins,  inhere  in  the  choices 
or  "exercises"  of  the  will.  Back  of  those  exercises  is  a 
state  or  bias  of  the  "heart"  which  in  itself  has,  no  moral 
quality.  In  an  unconverted  man  this  bias  makes  it  certain 
that  his  acts  will  be  evil,  yet  these  choices  are  his  own. 
In  regeneration  this  bias  is  changed  by  God  to  a  bias  or 
taste  for  good,  and  man  is  passive  in  this  change.  But 
now  his  choices  are  Godward,  and  to  them  are  all  the 
promises  of  the  gospel.  This  doctrine  that  sin  and  virtue 
consist  in  exercises  or  definite  acts  led  Hopkins  to  deny 
the  responsibility  for  Adam's  sin  which  Edwards  had 
maintained.  Men  "  are  not  guilty  of  his  sin,  are  not  pun- 
ished, and  do  not  suffer  for  that,  any  further  than  they 
implicitly  or  expressly  approve  of  his  transgression  by 
sinning  as  he  did."  Yet  God  has  so  constituted  man  that 
present  sin  is  an  effect  of  Adam's  sin;  man  sins  as  soon 
as  childhood  begins  to  act.  The  divine  efficiency  is  the 
ultimate  cause  of  all  acts,  good  and  bad ;  but  since  sin  is 
in  the  act  or  exercise  and  not  in  its  cause,  sin  belongs  to 
man  and  not  to  God. 

These  views,  advanced  in  an  uncompromisingly  contro- 
versial manner,  naturally  excited  much  opposition  from 
the  Liberal  Theologians  and  the  Old  Calvinists  alike,  and 
were  combated  quite  as  much  by  the  latter  as  by  the 
former.      Hopkins's  first  tract  of  importance  was  issued  in 


SAMUEL   HOPKINS.  29 1 

1759,  the  year  after  Bellamy's  "Wisdom  of  God  in  the 
Permission  of  Sin,"  and  bears  its  argument  in  its  title: 
"Sin,  through  Divine  Interposition,  an  Advantage  to  the 
Universe,  and  yet  this  no  Excuse  for  Sin  or  Encourage- 
ment to  it."  But  this  created  little  discussion  compared 
with  his  next  essay.  In  1761  Jonathan  Mayhew  put  forth 
two  sermons  on  "  Striving  to  Enter  in  at  the  Strait  Gate," 
in  which  he  advocated  his  familiar  position  that  regenera- 
tion, was  conditioned  on  the  earnest  efforts  of  good  men  to 
obtain  it.  After  four  years  of  waiting  Hopkins  replied 
in  "  An  Enquiry  concerning  the  Promises  of  the  Gospel, 
Whether  any  of  them  are  made  to  the  Exercises  and  Do- 
ings of  Persons  in  an  Unregenerate  State." 

Mayhew  did  not  live  long  enough  to  make  reply ;  but 
the  shot  aimed  at  the  Liberal  drew  abundant  fire  from  the 
Old  Calvinists.  Jedidiah  Mills,  a  venerable  minister  of 
"  New  Light  "  sympathies  settled  at  what  is  now  Hunting- 
ton, Conn.,  answered  Hopkins  in  1767  in  "An  Inquiry 
concerning  the  State  of  the  Unregenerate  under  the  Gos- 
pel." The  same  year  the  distinguished  Old  Calvinist, 
Moses  Hemmenway,  who  filled  a  pastorate  at  Wells,  Me., 
from  1 759  to  1 8 1 1 ,  put  forth  a  volume  of  "  Seven  Sermons 
on  the  Obligation  and  Encouragement  of  the  Unregener- 
ate to  labour  for  the  Meat  which  endureth  to  everlasting 
Life."  To  the  tract  of  Mills  Hopkins  replied  in  1769  in 
his  "  True  State  and  Character  of  the  Unregenerate, 
stripped  of  all  Misrepresentation  and  Disguise."  But 
now  the  able  and  excellent  William  Hart,  an  Old  Calvinist 
of  "  Old  Light "  sympathies  who  filled  a  distinguished 
pastorate  at  Saybrook,  Conn.,  from  1736  to  1784,  ap- 
peared in  the  arena  in  1769  with  a  dialogue  and  a  satirical 
sketch  in  which  he  opposed  Hopkins's  positions,  and  first 
used  the  epithet  "  Hopkintonian  "  to  describe  his  system. 
To  these  arguments  of   Hart   Hopkins  replied   the  next 


292  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

year  with  a  good  deal  of  asperity.  In  1771  Hart  issued 
a  vigorous  criticism  of  Edwards's  theory  of  virtue,  and  the 
year  following  Hemmenway  put  forth  an  elaborate  reply 
to  Hopkins's  rejoinder  to  Mills.  These  two  works,  and 
one  by  the  Old  Calvinist,  Moses  Mather,  of  Darien,  Conn., 
drew  forth  from  Hopkins  in  1773  his  greatest  and  last  im- 
portant controversial  treatise,  "  An  Inquiry  into  the  Nature 
of  True  Holiness." 

In  all  this  heated  warfare  of  pamphlets,  the  question 
between  the  Old  Calvinists  and  the  champion  of  the  "  New 
Divinity  "  was  as  to  the  status  of  that  class  of  men  of 
upright,  moral  lives,  but  of  no  Christian  experience,  with 
which  every  religious  community  is  familiar.  Hopkins 
argued  that  they  ought  to  use  the  means  of  grace;  but 
that  so  long  as  they  remained  unconverted  under  those 
means  they  were  growing  worse  rather  than  better.  His 
Old  Calvinist  opponents  replied  that  though  a  man  who 
simply  prayed  and  read  his  Bible  and  attended  divine 
worship  was  not  fulfilling  his  whole  duty  and  was  not  yet 
regenerate,  yet  God  commanded  prayer  and  worship  as 
well  as  repentance,  and  the  man  who  used  these  and  other 
means  diligently  was  growing  better  rather  than  worse, 
and  instead  of  moving  away  from  God  was  coming  into  a 
position  where  God  was  likely  to  bless  him  with  a  full 
conversion. 

Bellamy  and  Hopkins  were  companions  of  Edwards's 
later  life;  but  the  others  of  the  Edwardean  school  to 
whom  reference  is  now  to  be  made  may  more  properly  be 
called  successors,  since  they  had  little  or  no  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Northampton  divine.  The  earliest  of 
these  successors  were  two  young  men  of  Connecticut  birth, 
Stephen  West  and  John  Smalley,  who  graduated  from 
Yale  in  1755  and  1756.  Both  exercised  a  wide  influence 
through  their  training  of  theological  students  in  their  own 


SM ALLEY,    WEST,  AND  EDWARDS.  293 

households,  as  well  as  through  their  writings.  West  was 
the  successor  of  Edwards  in  the  Stockbridge  pastorate 
from  1758  to  18 1 8,  and  was  brought  from  his  original 
Arminianism  to  a  high  type  of  Edwardeanism  by  the  in- 
fluence of  his  neighbor  at  Great  Harrington  during  the 
early  part  of  his  ministry, — Samuel  Hopkins.  As  a  con- 
troversialist West  is  best  remembered  for  his  "  Essay  on 
Moral  Agency"  of  1772, — a  hyper-Edwardean  defense  of 
Edwards's  "Freedom  of  Will"  against  the  criticisms  of 
Rev.  Dr.  James  Dana,  of  New  Haven ;  and  his  ''  Scripture 
Doctrine  of  the  Atonement"  of  1785,  of  which  there  will 
be  occasion  to  speak  in  connection  with  the  younger 
Edwards's  more  famous  sermons  on  the  same  theme. 
Smalley's  pastorate  was  at  what  is  now  New  Britain, 
Conn.,  from  1757  to  1820.  A  pupil  of  Bellamy,  he  was 
in  turn  the  teacher  of  Emmons.  His  doctrinal  contri- 
bution to  the  "New  Divinity"  was  a  development  along 
lines  marked  out  by  Edwards,  of  the  theory  of  the  natural 
ability  of  the  sinner  to  serve  God,  as  distinguished  from 
moral  inability. 

A  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  a  third  of  these  succes- 
sors, in  that  he  not  only  bore  the  name  of  Edwards,  but 
in  many  incidents  of  his  career  strikingly  resembled  the 
founder  of  the  Edwardean  school.  Jonathan  Edwards  the 
younger  was  in  his  thirteenth  year  at  the  death  of  his 
father,  by  whom  he  had  been  designed  for  a  missionary 
to  the  Indians.  His  education  was  at  Princeton  College, 
where  he  graduated  in  1765,  and  the  reception  of  his  de- 
gree was  followed  by  a  period  of  theologic  training  under 
Bellamy.  A  tutorship  at  Princeton  was  succeeded,  in 
1 769,  by  his  settlement  over  the  North  Church  in  New 
Haven — a  conspicuous  post,  from  which  he  was  dismissed 
in  1795,  really,  though  not  ostensibly,  by  reason  of  doc- 
trinal opposition.     From  New  Haven  he  transferred  his 


294  '^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

ministerial  labors  to  the  little  town  of  Col eb rook,  Conn., 
and  from  there  he  was  called  to  the  presidency  of  Union 
College,  in  1799.  He  died  in  his  new  office  on  August  i, 
1 80 1.  Professor  Park  has  thus  summarized  the  curious 
likeness  of  this  life  to  that  of  the  elder  Edwards :  "  The 
son,  like  the  father,  was  a  tutor  in  the  college  where  he 
had  been  a  student ;  was  first  ordained  over  a  prominent 
church  in  the  town  where  his  maternal  grandfather  had 
been  the  pastor ;  was  dismissed  on  account  of  his  doctrinal 
opinions ;  was  afterward  the  minister  of  a  retired  parish ; 
was  then  president  of  a  college ;  and  died  at  the  age  of 
about  fifty-five  years,  soon  after  his  inauguration."  In 
intellectual  acumen  the  younger  Edwards  much  resembled 
the  elder;  but  he  lacked  the  poetic  nature  and  the  warm 
mystical  feeling  which  made  the  temperament  of  the  father 
so  rare  a  combination  of  the  qualities  of  the  intellect  and 
of  the  heart. 

Jonathan  Edwards  the  younger  was,  like  most  of  the 
Edwardean  leaders,  a  successful  trainer  of  ministerial  can- 
didates, numbering  among  his  pupils  men  like  Presidents 
Dwight  of  Yale  and  Griffin  of  Williams,  or  Rev.  Drs. 
Samuel  Nott  and  Jedidiah  Morse.  He  edited  his  father's 
works ;  he  expounded  his  father's  system  with  originality 
and  force ;  like  Hopkins,  he  attacked  negro  slavery ;  he 
was  a  power  in  the  churches  always.  But  he  gained  his 
chief  repute  as  a  developer  of  the  Edwardean  system 
through  a  discussion  in  regard  to  the  atonement  which 
had  its  rise  in  consequence  of  the  teachings  of  the  intro- 
ducers of  Universalism  into  New  England. 

Universalism  was  first  propagated  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic  by  Rev.  John  Murray,  once  a  disciple  of  White- 
field.  Murray  came  to  America  from  his  English  home 
in  1770,  and  founded  a  congregation  at  Gloucester,  Mass., 
about  1779.      From    1793  to  his  death,  in   18 15,  he  was 


EARLY   UXIVERSALISM.  295 

pastor  of  a  flock  at  Boston.  His  indefatigable  itinerant 
labors,  and  those  of  his  American  associate,  Elhanan  Win- 
chester, met  with  considerable  response,  especially  among 
the  Baptists  ;  and  his  speculations  won  disciples,  and  led 
to  the  acknowledgment  of  somewhat  similar  opinions  by 
several  Congregational  ministers.  Of  those  who  thus  ad- 
vocated the  doctrine  of  ultimate  universal  salvation,  though 
far  from  agreeing  fully  with  Murray,  the  most  noted  was 
Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Chauncy  of  Boston,  the  opponent  of  the 
Whitefieldian  revival  methods  of  forty  years  before.  In 
an  anonymous  tract  of  1782,  entitled  "Salvation  for  All 
Men  Illustrated  and  Vindicated  as  a  Scripture  Doctrine," 
Chauncy  published  a  number  of  excerpts  from  the  writings 
of  foreign  Universalists,  and  taught  the  ultimate  rescue  of 
mankind,  through  Christ ;  though  he  held  that  many  might 
undergo  a  protracted  period  of  suffering  hereafter.  The 
next  year  Chauncy  supported  these  beliefs  in  a  second 
anonymous  tract.  These  treatises  were  replied  to  by  a 
number  of  ministers,  both  Edwardeans  and  Old  Calvinists, 
and  notably  by  Samuel  Mather  and  Joseph  Eckley  of 
Boston,  Peter  Thacher  of  Maiden,  Timothy  Allen  of  Gran- 
ville, Mass.,  George  Beck  with  of  Lyme,  Conn.,  and  the 
*"'  New  Divinity  "  leaders  Hopkins  and  Emmons,  during 
1782  and  1783.  But  Chauncy  persevered;  and  in  1784 
set  forth  an  anonymous,  but  hardly  unacknowledged,  book, 
— "  The  Mystery  hid  from  Ages  ...  or,  the  Salvation 
of  all  Men," — defending  his  previous  positions  with  great 
elaboration.  To  this  work  the  younger  Edwards  gave  an 
exceedingly  able  answer  in  1 790. 

These  outcroppings  of  Universalist  sentiments  were  a 
sign  of  the  general  ferment  of  the  times  succeeding  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  though  not  very  extensive  in  the 
numbers  affected,  they  were  widely  scattered,  and  created 
much  alarm  by  appearing  in  the  most  unexpected  places. 


296  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

Such  an  instance  was  that  of  Rev.  Joseph  Huntington,  of 
Coventry,  Conn.,  who  died,  in  1794,  supposedly  in  sym- 
pathy with  his  ministerial  brethren,  but  whose  posthumous 
"Calvinism  Improved"  of  1796  showed  him  a  Univer- 
salist, — the  "improvement"  being  the  extension  of  the 
divine  elective  decree  to  include  all  mankind. 

The  title  of  Huntington's  work  shows  the  general  doc- 
trinal attitude  of  the  early  Universalists.  While  some  be- 
lievers in  ultimate  restoration,  like  Chauncy,  were  not 
Calvinists,  many  of  this  way  of  thinking  were  staunchly 
Calvinistic,  and  drew  from  the  "  satisfaction  "  theory  of 
the  atonement  the  strongest  argument  either  for  the  im- 
mediate blessedness  of  all  men  at  death  or  their  final 
redemption.  The  younger  Edwards  thus  stated  their 
position  in  his  "  Brief  Observations  on  the  Doctrine  of 
Universal  Salvation"  of  1784:  "The  doctrine  is,  that  all 
mankind,  without  exception  but  none  of  the  devils,  will 
be  saved;  that  this  uni\-ersal  salvation  will  take  place  im- 
mediately after  the  general  judgment,  so  that  after  that 
time  there  will  be  no  punishment  of  any  individual  of  the 
human  race ;  that  this  deliverance  from  future  punishment 
is  obtained  in  the  way  of  the  most  strict  justice;  that 
Christ  having  paid  the  whole  debt,  for  all  mankind,  it  is 
not  consistent  with  justice  that  any  man  should  be  pun- 
ished for  sin  in  his  own  person."  This  position  was  nat- 
urally more  difficult  for  the  Edwardeans  than  for  the  Old 
Calvinists  to  answer,  so  long  as  the  "  satisfaction  "  theory 
of  the  atonement,  historically  characteristic  of  Calvinism, 
was  maintained.  The  Old  Calvinist  could  reply  that  all 
for  whom  Christ  died  would  be  saved ;  but  that  his  atone- 
ment was  limited,  being  only  for  the  elect.  But  while 
the  Edwardean  maintained  the  doctrines  of  election  and 
future  punishment  as  vigorously  as  the  Old  Calvinist, 
he  had  also  asserted,  since  Bellamy  published  his  "  True 


THE  ATONEMENT.  2gj 

Religion  "  in  1750,  that  the  atonement  was  general,  Christ 
having  died  for  all  men.  It  was  to  meet  the  difificulties 
of  this  situation  that  the  younger  Edwards  introduced  a 
theory  of  the  atonement  novel  to  New  England. 

This  new  Edwardean  theory  did  not  indeed  spring  from 
the  exigencies  which  brought  it  out.  Its  principles  lie 
back  in  the  teachings  of  the  elder  Edwards  and  his  con- 
temporaries, though  the  full  meaning  of  those  principles 
was  not  perceived  by  them.  In  their  exaltation  of  the 
sovereignty  of  God  they  had  taught  that  not  only  the 
provision  of  redemption  in  general,  but  the  rescue  of  each 
soul  in  particular,  was  a  work  of  divine  sovereignty.  This 
position  was  a  departure  from  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Cal- 
vinism, which  represented  God  as  sovereign  in  election 
and  in  providing  atonement,  but  held  that  after  Christ 
had  rendered  satisfaction  for  each  of  the  elect  the  salvation 
of  the  individual  whose  debt  was  thus  paid  was  an  act  of 
justice,  not  of  sovereignty.  And  taking  this  departure 
the  Edwardeans  must  inevitably  have  reached  eventually 
the  position  that  the  sinner's  debt  was  not  literally  dis- 
charged by  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  hence  that  the 
atonement  was  not  a  "satisfaction."  How  certainly  the 
minds  of  the  theologians  of  the  "  New  Divinity  "  school 
were  moving  in  the  direction  reached  by  the  younger 
Edwards  is  shown  by  the  treatise  entitled  "  The  Scripture 
Doctrine  of  the  Atonement,"  which  West  finished  in  the 
spring  of  1785  and  to  which  allusion  has  already  been 
made.  In  this  volume  West  maintained  that  the  atone- 
ment was  designed  to  manifest  the  divine  attributes,  to 
show  the  disposition  of  God''s  mind  toward  men  for  the 
breach  of  his  law,  and  that  it  involved  "  no  obligation  on 
the  justice  of  God,  to  pardon  and  save  the  sinner." 

The  full  statement  of  the  later  Edwardean  position  was 
given  in  three  sermons  preached  by  the  younger  Edwards 


298  THE    CONGREGAnONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

at  New  Haven  in  October,  1785,  and  printed  the  same 
year,  under  the  title  of  "The  Necessity  of  Atonement." 
In  these  discourses  lie  maintained  that  "  Christ  has  not,  in 
the  literal  and  proper  sense,  paid  the  debt  for  us."  God 
forgives  the  sinner  his  sin  freely.  The  atonement  did  not 
satisfy  "distributive  justice,"  i.e.,  the  reward  or  punish- 
ment of  the  individual  according  to  his  "  personal  moral 
character  or  conduct."  "This  atonement  constitutes  no 
part  of  the  personal  character  of  the  sinner :  but  his  per- 
sonal character  is  essentially  the  same,  as  it  would  have 
been,  if  Christ  had  made  no  atonement.  And  as  the 
sinner,  in  pardon,  is  treated,  not  only  more  favourably,  but 
infinitely  more  favourably,  than  is  correspondent  to  his 
personal  character,  his  pardon  is  wholly  an  act  of  infinite 
grace." 

But  "  justice  "  may  be  used  in  another  sense  than  "  dis- 
tributive." In  "  general  "  or  "  public  "  justice  "  any  thing 
is  just,  which  is  right  and  best  to  be  done  " ;  and  in  this 
sense  "  the  pardon  of  the  sinner  is  entirely  an  act  of  justice. 
It  is  undoubtedly  most  conducive  to  the  divine  glory, 
and  the  general  good  of  the  created  system."  Though 
pardon  is  thus  wholly  an  act  of  grace,  an  atonement  was 
necessary  in  order  that  pardon  could  be  bestowed.  It  is 
essential  for  the  wise  government  of  God  and  the  best 
good  of  the  universe  that  "  the  authority  of  the  divine 
law "  should  be  maintained.  This  can  only  be  accom- 
plished by  the  punishment  of  all  offenders;  or  by  an 
atonement  "  which,  to  the  purposes  of  supporting  the 
authority  of  the  divine  law,  and  the  dignity  and  consist- 
ency of  the  divine  government,  is  equivalent  to  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  sinner,  according  to  the  literal  threatening 
of  the  law."  Such  an  atonement  Christ  has  made.  By  it 
"  general  justice  to  the  Deity  and  to  the  universe  is  satis- 
fied.     That  is  done  by  the  death  of  Christ  which  supports 


THE  ATONEMENT.  299 

the  authority  of  the  law,  and  renders  it  consistent  with  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  whole  system,  to  pardon 
the  sinner."  By  it  also  "  an  exhibition  "  is  "  made  in  the 
death  and  sufferings  of  Christ,  of  the  punishment  to  which 
the  sinner  is  justly  liable."  The  atonement  flows  from  the 
divine  benevolence ;  it  enables  God  to  pardon  whomsoever 
he  will,  on  whatever  conditions  he  sees  are  wise  to  impose  ; 
it  shows  that  the  withholding  of  pardon  is  no  act  of  injus- 
tice. The  atonement  is  general.  Christ's  death  makes 
it  possible  for  God  to  pardon  all  men,  it  does  not  make  it 
necessary  for  him  to  pardon  all. 

This  theory,  often  called  the  "  governmental  "  or  ''  New 
England  "  view,  resembles  in  many  respects  that  advanced 
more  than  a  century  and  a  half  before  by  the  great  Dutch 
Arminian  Hugo  Grotius.  It  differs  from  his  theory  chiefly 
in  the  clearer  emphasis  which  it  lays  on  the  atonement  as 
revealing  the  heinousness  of  sin,  and  in  its  presentation  of 
benevolence  as  the  central  thought  in  the  atonement  itself. 
Developed  by  Smalley,  Maxcy,  Emmons,  Griffin,  Burge, 
Weeks,  and  Professor  Park,  it  became  speedily  the  domi- 
nant view  in  American  Congregationalism ;  and  though 
other  conceptions  of  the  work  of  Christ  have  gained  a 
considerable  currency  within  the  last  forty  years,  it  is  still 
the  most  widely  accepted  theory  in  the  Congregational 
churches. 

All  of  the  Edwardean  leaders  were  independent  thinkers, 
and  no  one  fully  reproduced  another.  But  with  the  two 
Edwardean  divines  who  are  now  to  be  spoken  of, — Em- 
mons and  Dwight, — the  New  Divinity  may  be  said  to  have 
divided  into  two  subschools,  the  one  extreme  and  moving 
in  the  direction  which  Hopkins  had  pointed  out,  having 
Emmons  as  its  representative ;  the  other,  of  which  Dwight 
was  the  leader,  moderate  and  conciliatory. 

Nathanael  Emmons  was  a  native  of  East  Haddam,  Conn., 


300  THE   CONGREGA  TIONaLISTS.  [Chap,  viii, 

born  in  1745,  and  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  the  class  of  1767. 
His  ministerial  studies  were  in  part  under  Smalley,  but  he 
became  a  warm  friend  of  Hopkins ;  and  from  Hopkins, 
more  than  from  Smalley,  the  pattern  of  his  theology  was 
derived.  His  only  pastorate,  from  1773  to  1827,  was  at 
Franklin,  Mass.,  where  he  died  at  great  age  in  1840.  A 
man  of  enormous  industry,  of  much  wit,  and  of  exceeding 
keenness  of  mind,  Emmons's  best  work  was  as  a  trainer 
of  candidates  for  the  ministry,  of  whom  it  is  thought  not 
less  than  a  hundred  passed  under  his  molding  touch.  Of 
his  influence  on  the  development  of  Congregational  polity 
there  will  be  occasion  later  to  speak.  No  man  of  his 
age  was  more  widely  a  force  in  the  religious  life  of  New 
England. 

In  his  theology  Emmons  developed  yet  further  the  posi- 
tions taken  by  Hopkins,  and  which  were  known  by  the 
Hopkinsians  as  "  Consistent  Calvinism."  Holiness  and  sin 
are  "  exercises  "  of  the  will ;  and  though  Emmons  appears 
to  have  believed  that  some  permanent  substratum  lies 
under  these  exercises,  he  so  emphasized  the  idea  that  the 
mind  exists  solely  in  activity  as  to  convey  the  impression 
that  man's  spiritual  nature  is  simply  a  chain  of  acts  or 
"  exercises,"  each  perfectly  good  or  wholly  bad.  In  these 
acts  the  will  is  free  in  the  sense  that  it  acts  voluntarily, 
though  the  ultimate  cause  of  all  "  exercises  "  is  the  divine 
efficiency.  "  If  men  always  act  under  a  divine  operation, 
then  they  ahvays  act  of  necessity,  though  not  of  compul- 
sion." "Though  God  does  work  in  men  to  repent,  to  be- 
lieve, and  to  obey,  yet  God  does  not  repent,  nor  believe, 
nor  obey,  but  the  persons  themselves  on  whom  he  oper- 
ates." Though  the  efficiency  of  God  is  the  cause  of  all 
action,  yet  "  no  created  object  .  .  .  bears  the  least  resem- 
blance of  the  Deity  simply  because  he  made  it.  .  .  .  It 
is,  therefore,  as  consistent  with  the  moral  rectitude  of  the 


NATHANAEL  EMMONS.  3OI 

Deity  to  produce  sinful,  as  holy,  exercises  in  the  minds  of 
men.  His  operations  and  their  voluntary  exercises  are 
totally  distinct." 

Emmons,  unlike  Hopkins,  represents  man  as  active  in 
regeneration.  He  is  likewise  active  in  sin,  and  derives  no 
guilt  from  Adam,  "  for  moral  depravity  consists  in  the 
free,  voluntary  exercises  of  a  moral  agent ;  and  of  conse- 
quence cannot  be  transmitted  by  one  person  to  another." 
But  "  in  consequence  of  Adam's  first  transgression,  God 
now  brings  his  posterity  into  the  world  in  a  state  of  moral 
depravity."  Even  in  infants  God  "produces  those  moral 
exercises  ...  in  which  moral  depravity  properly  and 
essentially  consists."  Emmons  asserted  election  and  rep- 
robation in  the  strongest  terms.  His  Calvinism  was  of  the 
Supralapsarian  type.  Yet  he  affirmed  none  the  less  dis- 
tinctly that  sin  is  the  voluntary  active  transgression  of 
known  law,  even  in  the  case  of  young  children,  and  that 
sinners  should  be  exhorted  to  immediate  repentance  and 
holy  love.  Emmons  wholly  agreed  with  Hopkins  that  the 
essence  of  sin  is  selfishness,  and  that  of  holiness,  disinter- 
ested love  or  benevolence. 

In  Emmons  the  Edwardean  school  reached  its  extrem- 
est  development  in  the  direction  in  which  Hopkins  had 
led  the  way ;  in  Dwight  it  appeared  in  a  much  more  mod- 
erate and  conciliatory  type  of  theology.  Timothy  Dwight 
was  born  at  Northampton  in  1752,  and  was  through  his 
mother  a  grandson  of  the  elder  Edwards.  Like  almost 
all  of  the  Edwardean  leaders,  he  graduated  at  Yale,  his 
class  being  that  of  1 769.  After  service  as  tutor  in  the 
college,  and  as  chaplain  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  suc- 
ceeded by  a  residence  of  several  years  in  his  native  town, 
Dwight  became  pastor  in  Greenfield  parish  in  the  town  of 
Fairfield,  Conn.,  where  he  remained  till  his  call  to  the  pres- 
idency of  Yale   College  in   1795.     His  election  brought 


302  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

about  the  ascendency  of  Edwardeanism  in  that  institution. 
Here  he  fulfilled  a  distinguished  administration  till  his 
death,  in  1817;  but,  what  is  of  more  moment  for  our  nar- 
rative, here  he  also  occupied  the  professorship  of  divinity, 
which  required  him  to  assume  the  pastorate  of  the  college 
church  and  to  give  regular  instruction  to  the  students  in 
theology,  preaching  a  series  of  doctrinal  sermons  on  Sun- 
day mornings,  designed  to  cover  the  outline  of  his  system 
of  divinity  in  four  years.  His  own  powerful  personality, 
warm  piety,  and  great  ability  gave  these  discourses  wide 
popularity  and  much  influence,  not  only  over  the  students 
of  the  college,  but  with  the  Christian  public.  As  "  Theo- 
logy Explained  and  Defended,"  they  were  published  in 
1 818,  and  again  in  1823. 

Dwight  earnestly  opposed  Hopkins's  and  Emmons's 
theory  of  the  divine  efficiency  as  the  cause  of  sinful 
choices,  and  affirmed  that  their  speculations  led  toward  a 
Pantheism  much  like  that  of  Spinoza.  Unlike  the  more 
strenuous  teachers  of  the  Edwardean  school  also,  he  urged 
"  that  Ministers  ought  to  advise,  and  exhort,  sinners  to 
use  the  Means  of  Grace."  He  held  distinctly  that  as  long 
as  a  man  remains  unregenerate  all  his  acts  are  sinful ;  but 
on  the  question,  "  Whether  the  man,  who  performs  the 
act  merely,  is  any  better  for  performing  it,  than  if  he  had 
neglected  or  refused  to  perform  it,"  Dwight  took  Old  Cal- 
vinist,  rather  than  Hopkinsian,  ground,  answering  "  that, 
supposing  the  man's  disposition  substantially  the  same 
in  both  cases,  he  is  less  sinful  when  he  performs  the  act, 
than  when  he  neglects  or  refuses  to  perform  it."  "  In  his 
preaching  and  advice,  a  minister  is  not  to  confine  himself 
to  the  mere  enjoining  of  Faith  and  Repentance ;  but  is  to 
extend  them  to  any  other  conduct  in  itself  proper  to  be 
pursued  ;  while  he  universally  teaches  these  great  Christian 
duties,  as  the  immediate  end  of  all  his  preaching."     Nor 


TIMOTHY  D WIGHT.  303 

is  it  counseling  sinners  to  sin  to  exhort  them  to  pray  and 
read  the  Bible,  since  Christ  and  the  prophets  directed  those 
who  were  obviously  unregenerate  to  call  upon  God. 

A  further  divergence  appeared  between  Dwight  and 
Emmons.  The  latter  taught  that  holiness  or  sin  consists 
in  acts  of  choice  or  "  exercises,"  and  was  understood  to 
hold  that  the  soul  was  simply  a  chain  of  "exercises"; 
hence  his  system  was  often  called  the  "exercise  scheme." 
To  Dwight's  thinking  something  possessing  moral  qualities 
underlies  choice ;  "  there  is  a  cause  of  moral  action  in  In- 
telligent beings,  frequently  indicated  by  the  words  Prin- 
ciple, Affections,  Habits,  Nature,  Tendency,  Propensity, 
and  several  others."  Elsewhere  he  speaks  of  this  cause 
as  a  "disposition,"  and  remarks:  "Of  the  metaphysical 
nature  of  this  cause  I  am  ignorant.  But  its  existence  is, 
in  my  own  view,  certainly  proved  by  its  effects."  This 
"disposition"  is  the  cause  of  righteous  or  sinful  choices; 
and  regeneration  consists  in  "  a  ReHsh  for  Spiritual  objects, 
communicated  to  it  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
Yet,  "  after  Regeneration  the  native  character  of  man  still 
remains ;  his  relish  for  sinful  pursuits  and  enjoyments  still 
continues ;  and  his  relish  for  spiritual  pursuits  and  enjoy- 
ments is  never  perfected  on  this  side  of  the  grave." 

Thi3  conception  that  regeneration  consists  in  the  impar- 
tation  to  the  disposition  of  a  new  relish  or  "  taste,"  thus 
advanced  by  Dwight  against  Emmons's  thought  of  regen- 
eration as  the  production  of  "  holy  exercises  "  or  "  only 
love,  which  is  activity  itself,"  was  elaborated,  largely  inde- 
pendently, by  a  contemporary  of  Dwight,  Rev.  Asa  Bur- 
ton, pastor  at  Thetford,  Vt.,  from  1779  to  1836,  and  the 
instructor  of  nearly  sixty  ministerial  candidates.  In  Bur- 
ton's teaching  it  became  known  as  the  "taste  scheme." 

These  divergent  tendencies  manifested  in  the  Edwardean 
school  by  the  close  of  the   eighteenth  century  were  con- 


304  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

tinued  and  intensified  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth ; 
and  resulted,  after  further  development  by  Nathaniel  W, 
Taylor  and  others,  in  the  creation  in  Connecticut  of  two 
theological  seminaries,  representative,  in  their  early  life  at 
least,  of  the  somewhat  opposing  theories  of  later  Edward- 
eanism.  Of  these  movements  there  will  be  occasion  later 
to  speak. 

The  Edwardean  movement  was  a  theological  develop- 
ment of  great  force  and  originality ;  but  its  impulse  was 
not  primarily  speculative.  The  New  England  mind  has 
always  been  essentially  practical.  It  cannot  have  escaped 
the  reader's  observation  that  the  Liberal  and  the  Edward- 
ean movements  alike  had  to  do  with  what  may  not  im- 
properly be  called  the  more  practical  doctrines  of  theology. 
Questions  of  the  proper  use  of  "  means,"  of  the  nature  of 
conversion,  of  the  extent  of  human  freedom  and  responsi- 
bility, of  the  essence  of  that  holiness  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  Christian  life,  of  the  relation  of  the  atonement  to 
the  forgiveness  of  the  individual  transgressor's  sins,  con- 
stituted the  chief  themes  of  these  debates.  But  practical 
as  were  these  topics  of  speculation,  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  the  influence  of  the  Edwardean  party  over  the 
churches  was  not  greater  by  reason  of  its  warm,  evangelic 
life,  than  by  reason  of  its  doctrinal  discussions.  The  Ed- 
wardean leaders  were  not  retired  students,  they  were  all 
of  them  pastors  intimately  associated  with  the  life  of  the 
churches.  They  preached  human  responsibility  and  im- 
mediate repentance  as  New  England  had  never  heard 
these  doctrines  preached,  even  if  they  coupled  this  preach- 
ing with  a  high  assertion  of  election  and  necessity.  They 
advocated  revival  methods ;  they  represented  that  which 
was  best  in  the  Whitefieldian  movement.  They  urged  a 
strenuous,  self-forgetful  type  of  Christian  life.  Edward- 
eanism  was  not  merely,  one  is  almost  ready  to  say  not 


EFFECTS   OF   THE  DISCUSSIONS.  305 

chiefly,  a  doctrinal  system ;  it  was  a  moral  and  spiritual 
force. 

The  leaders  of  the  Edwardean  party  were  of  Connecti- 
cut origin,  and  theirs  gradually  became  the  dominant  in- 
fluence in  Connecticut  and  western  Massachusetts.  Unlike 
eastern  Massachusetts,  Liberal  Theology  of  the  Armin- 
ian  type  had  not  found  much  lodgment  in  the  churches  of 
western  New  England  before  the  Edwardean  movement 
became  powerful.  English  writers  were  less  read,  the 
Episcopal  Church  had  some  existence  in  Connecticut  and 
afforded  a  refuge  for  those  of  Arminian  belief  and  strong 
dislike  of  emotional  preaching.  The  separation  between 
the  Old  Calvinists  and  the  Edwardeans  in  western  New 
England  was  long  exceedingly  bitter;  but  by  1758  the 
"New  Light"  sympathizers  of  both  classes  had  gained 
control  of  the  ecclesiastical  machinery  of  Connecticut,  and 
the  most  energetic  and  influential  of  the  "New  Lights" 
were  the  Edwardeans.  Then,  too,  Edwardeanism,  though 
largely  a  Connecticut  product,  had  its  leading  expounders 
of  the  extremer  type,  like  Hopkins  and  Emmons,  outside 
of  Connecticut  borders.  In  Connecticut  the  younger  Ed- 
wards and  Dwight  presented  its  principles  in  a  form  more 
conciliatory  to  the  Old  Calvinists ;  and  though  Old  Cal- 
vinism continued,  by  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
Connecticut  and  western  Massachusetts  were  thoroughly 
leavened  with  Edwardean  views  and  methods.  Edward- 
ean opinions  also  spread  widely  among  the  Presbyterians 
of  the  northern  Middle  States,  though  opposed  wherever 
Scotch  or  Protestant  Irish  influence  was  strong  by  an 
older  form  of  Calvinism. 

On  the  other  hand,  Liberal  Theology  of  the  type  of 
Mayhew  and  Chauncy  grew  in  influence  in  eastern  Massa- 
chusetts till  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  led  to 
a  large  ignoring  of  the  characteristic  doctrines  of  Calvin- 


306  THE   CONG  REG  A  TI  ON  A  LISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

ism  by  many  preachers  who  did  not  go  to  any  such  lengths 
as  the  two  Boston  ministers  whose  names  have  been  cited. 
But  though  powerfully  influential,  Liberal  Theology  never 
gained  so  full  control  over  eastern  Massachusetts  as  Ed- 
wardeanism  obtained  in  western  New  England. 

The  half-century  following  the  Great  Awakening  was  a 
period  of  spiritual  deadness,  and  owing  to  this  low  relig- 
ious life  the  growing  divergence  between  the  influences 
which  were  molding  eastern  and  western  New  England 
was  not  as  obvious  as  would  otherwise  have  been  the  case ; 
but  the  cleft  between  Liberalism  and  Edwarde^nism  ran 
deep,  and  the  student  who  looks  back  upon  this  epoch  can 
see  that  it  was  certain  that  if  a  new  and  general  interest  in 
religion  should  arise  or  the  supporters  of  either  type  of 
theology  should  carry  an  aggressive  campaign  into  terri- 
tories where  the  other  was  strong,  an  open  separation 
could  be  the  only  result.  These  conditions  appeared  in 
the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  opening  years 
of  the  nineteenth  centuries,  and  the  consequence  was  the 
Unitarian  division,  of  which  some  account  will  be  given 
later  in  our  story. 

But  while  eastern  and  western  New  England  were  thus 
drifting  really  if  not  recognizedly  apart,  as  the  eighteenth 
century  drew  toward  its  end,  the  feeling  of  fellowship  be- 
tween the  Edwardeans  and  those  of  the  Presbyterians  who 
sympathized  with  their  views  was  constantly  increasing. 
The  old  interest  in  polity  which  had  marked  the  seven- 
teenth centur}^  had  largely  been  driven  out  by  the  new 
zeal  for  doctrinal  debate.  Doctrinal  agreement  made  the 
people  of  western  New  England,  and  especially  the  Ed- 
wardeans, regard  the  differences  in  polity  between  Presby- 
terianism  and  Connecticut  Consociationism  as  immaterial. 
Several  of  the  Edwardean  leaders,  like  the  younger  Ed- 
wards and  Dwight,  labored  to  secure  the  more  intimate 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  POLITY.  307 

union  of  the  two  denominations ;  and  in  general  the  Ed- 
wardeans  contributed  httle  to  the  development  of  Con- 
gregational polity. 

There  was,  however,  one  conspicuous  exception.  To 
Nathanael  Emmons  Congregational  polity  is  more  indebted 
than  to  any  other  leader  of  the  eighteenth  century,  not  ex- 
cepting John  Wise,  and  his  thought  ran  in  the  same  direc- 
tion which  Wise  had  already  indicated.  Emmons  wholly 
abandoned  the  aristocratic  conception  of  Congregationalism 
typical  of  the  seventeenth  century,  which  Wise  had  op- 
posed. In  his  incisive  style  he  declared  that  a  Congrega- 
tional church  is  "  a  pure  democracy,  which  places  every 
member  of  the  church  upon  a  level,  and  gives  him  perfect 
liberty  with  order."  In  a  Congregational  Church,  in  all 
matters  of  business,  the  pastor  "  is  but  a  mere  moderator ; 
and,  in  respect  to  voting,  stands  upon  the  same  ground  as 
a  private  brother."  Every  church  is  wholly  self-govern- 
ing: "One  church  has  as  much  power  as  another;"  and 
"  there  is  no  appeal  from  the  authority  of  a  particular 
church  to  any  higher  ecclesiastical  tribunal." 

Emmons  carried  his  doctrines  of  ecclesiastical  independ- 
ence to  an  extreme,  as  when  he  opposed  the  establishment 
of  a  State  association  in  Massachusetts  with  the  assertion  : 
"  Associationism  leads  to  Consociationism ;  Consociation- 
ism  leads  to  Presbyterianism ;  Presbyterianism  leads  to 
Episcopacy  ;  Episcopacy  leads  to  Roman  Catholicism  ;  and 
Roman  Catholicism  is  an  ultimate  fact."  Modern  Con- 
gregationalism does  not  believe  that  voluntary  organiza- 
tions of  a  non-judicial  character  meeting  at  stated  intervals 
lead  to  such  a  chain  of  results  any  more  than  it  believes 
that  the  soul  is  a  chain  of  "  exercises  "  ;  but  Emmons's 
teaching  as  to  the  absolute  democracy  of  a  Congrega- 
tional church  is  the  view  of  modern  Congregationalism. 

The    development    of    the     Congregational    churches 


308  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  viii. 

throughout  the  eighteenth  century  was  such  as  to  make 
natural  the  teachings  of  Emmons  regarding  poHty.  The 
first  two  generations  on  American  soil  saw  the  growth  of 
the  principle  of  fellowship.  That  principle  then  became 
so  imbedded  in  American  Congregationalism  that  it  has 
continued,  and  found  constant  manifestation  down  to  the 
present  day.  But  from  the  time  of  the  Great  Awakening, 
if  not  earlier,  this  centralizing  tendency  was  supplanted  by 
an  emphasis  on  local  independence.  Many  causes  contrib- 
uted to  this  result ;  the  growth  of  democracy  in  political 
thought  culminating  in  national  independence,  the  doc- 
trinal divisions,  the  differences  of  opinion  as  to  method 
arising  out  of  the  revivals,  the  rapidly  lessening  interference 
of  the  civil  governments  in  ecclesiastical  afTairs,  all  tended 
to  make  the  local  church  free  and  democratic ;  while  the 
new  impulses  toward  voluntary  union  springing  out  of 
missionary  eflforts  at  home  and  abroad,  which  have  tended 
to  centralize  modern  Congregationalism  in  united  endeavor, 
did  not  begin  to  appear  till  the  very  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

•   THE    EVANGELICAL    REVIVAL. 

While  the  later  theological  movements  described  in 
the  last  chapter  were  in  progress  the  great  period  of  emi- 
gration had  begun  which  was  to  carry  thousands  of  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  New  England  beyond  the  borders 
of  the  original  colonies,  and  ultimately  to  plant  Congrega- 
tional churches  across  the  continent  to  the  Pacific.  But 
at  first  the  "  new  West "  was  close  at  hand. 

Vermont  was  the  earliest  of  these  territories  to  be  opened 
up  for  settlement.  Situated  on  the  route  between  the 
older  colonies  and  Canada,  it  was.  not  a  favorable  region 
for  husbandry  till  the  conquest  of  the  French  possessions 
along  the  St.  Lawrence  in  1759—60  had  removed  the  con- 
stant danger  of  attack  from  the  northward.  On  the  con- 
clusion of  the  old  French  war,  the  few  military  settlements 
already  existing  in  the  territory  were  speedily  supplanted 
by  numerous  peaceful  colonies ;  and  so  preponderatingly 
was  this  immigration  of  Connecticut  origin  that  a  Vermont 
convention  in  1777  contemplated  the  bestowal  of  the  name 
"  New  Connecticut  "  on  the  region.  Naturally,  Congrega- 
tionalism came  with  the  more  religious  of  the  immigrants, 
and  in  1 762  the  first  church  of  Vermont  was  formed  at 
Bennington.  Other  churches  were  organized  in  rapid  suc- 
cession,— Newbury  in  1764,  Westminster  in  1767,  Guilford 
and  Windsor  in  1768,  Brattleboro  in  1770,  Chester  and 
Thetford  in  1773,  Newfane  in  1774,  and  Putney  and  Marl- 
boro  in    1776.      The  Revolution  checked  the  growth  of 

309 


3IO  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

Vermont  for  a  time,  but  at  its  close,  and  especially  after 
the  admission  of  Vermont  as  the  fourteenth  State  of  the 
Union  in  1791,  the  increase  of  population  was  very  rapid 
and  the  multiplication  of  churches  correspondingly  great. 
By  1800  seventy-four  Congregational  churches  had  come 
into  being  in  Vermont,  and  they  had  been  united  since 
1796  in  a  "General  Convention."  The  Congregational 
desire  for  education  was  exhibited  in  the  granting  of  a 
charter  to  the  University  of  Vermont  in  1791  and  to  Mid- 
dlebury  College  in  1800, — institutions  largely  Congrega- 
tional in  officers  and  membership,  though  undenominational 
in  their  constitutions. 

A  few  Congregational  churches  were  founded  in  eastern 
New  York,  besides  several  on  Long  Island,  long  before  the 
Revolution.  Thus  churches  of  more  or  less  permanence 
came  into  being  at  East  Chester  in  1665,  at  Bedford  in 
1680,  at  Gloversville  in  1752,  and  elsewhere.  But  the 
settlement  of  central  and  western  New  York  did  not  begin 
in  force  till  after  peace  had  been  made  with  Great  Britain. 
From  that  time  onward  emigration  from  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut  across  the  Hudson  was  rapid.  In  1791 
Congregational  churches  were  formed  at  Clinton,  Paris, 
and  Westmoreland,  one  at  Franklin  followed  in  1 792, 
others  at  Walton,  Hamden,  and  Whitestown  in  1 793. 
Others  yet  more  westward  speedily  followed,  as  at  Madison 
and  East  Bloomfield  in  1796,  Lisle  in  1797,  Camden  in 
1 798,  and  Canandaigua  in  1 799. 

Yet  the  most  westward  of  these  new  towns  in  which 
ecclesiastical  beginnings  were  thus  made  was  much  east- 
ward of  the  remoter  settlements  of  the  same  period  be- 
yond the  borders  of  New  York.  In  April,  1788,  a  party 
of  New  Englanders  began  the  first  plantation  in  Ohio, 
at  Marietta.  Here  worship  was  maintained  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  here  on  December  6,   1 796,  the  first  Con- 


WESTIVARD  EMIGRATION.  311 

gregational  church  of  Ohio,  and  the  first  in  the  "  Old 
Northwest,"  was  gathered.  The  portion  of  Ohio  most  dis- 
tinctively of  New  England  settlement  was,  however,  the 
southern  shore  of  Lake  Erie, — Connecticut's  "  Western 
Reserve."  The  year  which  saw  the  laying  of  ecclesias- 
tical foundations  at  Marietta  witnessed  the  beginnings  of 
Cleveland ;  but  the  first  church  in  the  "  Reserve "  was 
that  formed  among  the  immigrants  from  Pennsylvania  at 
Youngstown  in  i  799.  The  earliest  Congregational  church, 
and  the  second  of  any  denomination  in  the  "  Reserve,"  was 
that  of  Austinburg,  which  dates  from  1801.  Under  the 
impulse  of  immigration  from  New  England  and  the  Middle 
States  Ohio  rapidly  grew,  and  by  its  admission  into  the 
Union  in  1803  numbered  about  40,000  inhabitants, — a 
population  which  had  risen  in  18 10  to  230,000;  and  soon 
after  1830  reached  a  million. 

The  multiplication  of  churches  which  kept  pace  with 
this  rapid  spread  of  new  settlements  could  not  have  been 
effected  had  it  not  been  for  the  stirrings  of  missionary  zeal 
in  the  Congregational  churches  of  New  England  and  the 
Presbyterian  bodies  of  the  Middle  States.  Connecticut, 
which  contributed  so  largely  to  this  outpouring,  early  felt 
this  impulse.  The  General  Association  of  that  colony,  at 
its  meeting  in  Mansfield  in  June,  1774,  voted  in  favor  of 
raising  funds  and  sending  missionaries  to  "  y^  Settlements 
now  forming  in  the  Wilderness  to  the  Westward  &  North- 
westward," i.e.,  in  New  York  and  Vermont.  The  response 
of  the  churches  was  favorable,  and  in  September  of  the 
same  year  the  Association  decided  that  two  pastors  should 
go  forth  on  a  tour  of  "  5  or  6  months  "  "if  the  Committee 
are  able  to  provide  for  their  support  so  long," — the  journey 
to  begin  in  the  spring  of  1775.  But  by  the  time  the  mis- 
sionaries should  have  set  forth  the  skirmish  at  Lexington 
had  turned  popular  thought  in  other  channels,  and  the 


312  THE   CONGREGATlONALISrS.  [Chap.  ix. 

Association  in  June,  1775,  had  to  record  "that  the  per- 
plexed &  melancholly  State  of  pubHc  Affairs  has  been  a 
Discouragement  to  this  Design,  &  a  Reason  why  the  Col- 
lections have  not  been  brought  in,  as  was  expected." 
But  some  contributions  were  received,  even  in  the  dark 
days  of  the  Revolutionary  struggle  ;  and  in  i  780  the  Gen- 
eral Association  asked  two  pastors  to  go  as  missionaries 
to  Vermont.  Futher  discussion  followed  in  1788  and  in 
1791  ;  and  in  1792  a  missionary  was  approved.  At  the 
same  time  legislative  countenance  was  sought  for  soliciting 
contributions.  So  successful  were  these  appeals  that  in 
1 793  eight  settled  pastors  were  named  as  missionaries  to 
go  forth  on  tours  of  four  months  each,  to  receive  four  and 
a  half  dollars  as  their  weekly  compensation,  together  with 
an  allowance  of  four  dollars  a  week  to  supply  the  pulpits 
which  their  absence  left  vacant.  The  undertaking,  launched 
with  so  much  difficulty,  was  now  pushed  with  vigor. 

As  the  missionary  labors  of  the  Connecticut  General 
Association  grew  more  extensive,  its  own  conception  of 
the  work  magnified,  and  in  1797  it  consulted  the  local 
Associations  of  the  State  regarding  the  formation  of  a 
Missionary  Society.  Encouraged  by  the  response,  the 
General  Association  on  June  19,  1798,  organized  itself  as 
a  Missionary  Society, — the  first  voluntary  Congregational 
missionary  society  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic, — "  to 
Christianize  the  Heathen  in  North  America,  and  to  sup- 
port and  promote  Christian  Knowledge  in  the  new  settle- 
ments within  the  United  States."  This  organization  was 
followed  by  the  establishment  of  the  "  Connecticut  Evan- 
gelical Magazine"  in  1800,  a  periodical  designed  to  pro- 
mote acquaintance  with  missions,  as  well  as  for  theologic 
discussion ;  and  its  profits  were  assigned  to  the  Missionary 
Society.  In  1802  the  society  was  chartered  by  the  Con- 
necticut legislature. 


MISSIONARY  SOCIETIES.  313 

These  missionary  movements  in  Connecticut  led  to  simi- 
lar results  in  Massachusetts.  In  1 798  the  "  Congregational 
Missionary  Society  in  the  Counties  of  Berkshire  and  Co- 
lumbia "  was  formed,  embracing  representatives  of  the 
churches  of  western  Massachusetts  and  of  the  New  York 
county  immediately  adjacent.  And  on  May  28,  1799,  the 
"Massachusetts  Missionary  Society"  came  into  being,  under 
the  presidency  of  that  Edwardean  champion,  Nathanael 
Emmons,  an  organization  identical  in  aim  with  the  "  Mis- 
sionary Society  of  Connecticut."  Like  its  Connecticut 
prototype,  it  soon  began  the  publication  of  a  periodical, 
the  "Massachusetts  Missionary  Magazine,"  in  1803.  This 
Massachusetts  society  was  wholly  the  work  of  the  Edward- 
eans  and  chiefly  of  their  Hopkinsian  wing.  Two  years 
later,  September,  i8or,  the  "New  Hampshire  Missionary 
Society"  came  into  being,  and  in  1807  the  General  Con- 
vention of  Vermont  began  acting  as  a  missionary  society. 

In  addition  to  these  State  organizations  several  smaller 
bodies  of  a  missionary  character  were  formed  in  this  period. 
In  October,  1800,  the  "Boston  Female  Society  for  Mission- 
ary Purposes,"  the  first  missionary  organization  of  women, 
was  constituted.  Four  years  later  the  "  Female  Cent  In- 
stitution "  was  founded  in  New  Hampshire,- — an  association 
of  pious  women,  pledged  to  contribute  each  a  cent  a  week 
to  the  promotion  of  missions,  which  was  extensively  copied 
in  other  New  England  States.  In  1802  Hampshire  County 
in  Massachusetts  saw  the  beginnings  of  a  local  home  mis- 
sionary society  ;  a  similar  local  body  was  formed  in  eastern 
New  Hampshire  as  the  "  Piscataqua  Missionary  Society," 
in  1804;  and  in  1807  representatives  of  the  churches  of 
the  Massachusetts  counties  of  Worcester  and  Middlesex^ 
joined  in  an  "  Evangelical  Missionary  Society."  A  similar 
impulse  led  to  the  formation  of  the  "  Vermont  Religious 
Tract  Society  "  in  1808,  the  "  Connecticut  Bible  Society  " 


314  ^'■^^'   CONG  REG  ATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

in  1809,  and  the  "Massachusetts  Bible  Society"  during 
the  same  year.  The  development  of  these  numerous 
organizations,  many  of  which  were  not  indeed  peculiar  to 
Congregationalism,  revealed  clearly  the  ready  adaptability 
of  the  polity  to  meet  new  spiritual  conditions  by  voluntary 
organization  and  effort. 

Under  the  charge  of  these  new  agencies  of  evangeliza- 
tion, the  Congregational  churches  began  that  extensive 
sending  forth  of  laborers  into  the  newer  portions  of  the 
country  which  has  continued  to  the  present  day,  and  which 
has  done  so  much  to  impart  a  Christian  character  to  the 
civilization  of  the  great  West.  But  these  efforts  soon  gave 
rise  to  an  important  question  of  interdenominational  com- 
ity, the  solution  of  which  profoundly  affected  the  history 
of  Congregationalism  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  immigration  into  Vermont  was  almost  ex- 
clusively of  New  England  origin,  and  hence  Congregational 
institutions  were  established  in  that  State  without  ques- 
tion ;  but  in  New  York,  and  even  more  in  Ohio,  the  emi- 
grant from  New  England  encountered  settlers  from  the  old 
Middle  Colonies  whose  training  was  in  Presbyterianism  and 
for  whose  spiritual  instruction  the  Presbyterian  Church  was 
making  efforts  at  the  same  time  that  the  Congregational 
churches  were  sending  forth  missionaries.  Presbyterian 
and  Congregational  missionaries  met  on  the  same  ground, 
and  labored  for  the  same  communities.  It  seemed  desir- 
able that  some  system  of  cooperation  should  be  established. 

This  desire  was  the  more  natural  since  the  Edwardean 
party,  and  to  some  extent  the  Old  Calvinists,  of  Connecticut 
and  western  Massachusetts  liad  for  fifty  years  been  coming 
into  closer  affiliation  with  the  Pre.sbyterians  of  the  Middle 
States  who  largely  sympathized  with  their  doctrinal  views. 
The  elder  Edwards  was  president  of  Princeton  College,  the 
younger  Edwards  was  its  graduate,  nearly  half  the  trustees 


PRESBYTERIANS  AND    CONGREGATIONALISTS.      315 

of  that  institution  at  the  time  of  Edwards's  incumbency 
had  had  their  education  at  Yale.  The  pecuhar  consocia- 
tional  system  of  Connecticut  inclined  many  in  that  State 
to  look  upon  the  Connecticut  churches  as  more  allied  in 
government  with  the  Presbyterian  bodies  than  with  the 
churches  of  Massachusetts  which  held  to  the  "  Cambridge 
Platform."  This  feeling  found  frequent  public  expression. 
The  churches  of  Connecticut  were  often  designated  by 
their  own  pastors  and  members  as  "Presbyterian."  The 
Hartford  North  Association,  in  1 799,  formally  declared 
that  the  constitution  of  the  Connecticut  churches  "contains 
the  essentials  of  the  church  of  Scotland,  or  Presbyterian 
Church  in  America."  Even  the  General  Association 
spoke  of  a  plan  offered  in  i  788  by  which  Presbyterians  and 
Congregationalists  should  come  into  more  intimate  fellow- 
ship as  "  a  Scheme  for  an  Union  of  the  Presbyterians  in 
America,"  and  described  the  "Saybrook  Platform"  in  1805 
as  the  "  constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Con- 
necticut." More  formal  interrelation  was  naturally  estab- 
lished. As  a  barrier  against  the  introduction  of  an  Ameri- 
can _  episcopate, — an  exercise  of  English  governmental 
authority  much  feared  by  the  colonies  just  prior  to  the 
Revolution, — an  annual  joint  convention  of  representatives 
of  the  Synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  and  the  As- 
sociations of  Connecticut  met  from  1766  to  1775.  After 
the  war,  a  more  intimate  union  was  promoted,  especially 
by  the  Edwardean  leader  Timothy  Dwight,  which,  after 
discussion  and  correspondence  in  1788,  1790,  and  1791, 
resulted  in  an  agreement  between  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly  and  the  Connecticut  General  Association  that 
delegates  from  each  organization  should  regularly  be  sent 
to  the  session  of  the  other  body ;  and,  at  the  request  of 
the  Presbyterians  in  1 794,  these  representatives  were  given 
full  power  of  voting  in  the  meetings  to  which  they  were 


3 1 6  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

accredited.  Within  the  next  few  years  a  similar  exchange 
of  delegates  was  effected  between  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly  and  the  State  organizations  of  Massachusetts, 
Vermont,  and  New  Hampshire.  This  arrangement  con- 
tinued in  full  force  till  the  rupture  in  the  Presbyterian 
body  in  1837. 

Relations  between  the  two  denominations  being  so 
friendly,  and  polity  having  been  so  little  regarded  during 
the  doctrinal  discussions  which  had  prevailed  since  the 
Great  Awakening,  it  was  natural  that  union  in  missionary 
enterprises  should  be  looked  upon  with  favor.  The  motion 
to  that  effect  originated,  apparently,  with  the  younger 
Jonathan  Edwards,  in  the  Connecticut  General  Association 
of  1800,  where  Edwards,  then  president  of  Union  College, 
sat  as  a  representative  of  the  Presbyterian  General  Assem- 
bly. Thus  moved,  the  Association  empowered  its  delegates 
to  the  General  Assembly  to  enter  into  negotiations  "  to 
promote  harmony  and  to  establish,  as  far  as  possible,  an 
uniform  system  of  Church  government,  between  those 
habitants  of  the  new  Settlements,  who  are  attached  to  the 
Presbyterian  form  of  church  Government,  and  those  who 
are  attached  to  the  congregational  form."  The  result  was 
the  adoption  by  the  General  Assembly  in  May,  1801,  and 
by  the  Connecticut  General  Association  in  June  of  the 
same  year,  of  the  famous  "  Plan  of  Union."  This  agree- 
ment provided  that  missionaries  should  be  directed  to 
"promote  mutual  forbearance"  between  the  adherents 
of  the  respective  polities  where  they  should  labor;  that 
churches  of  Congregational  or  Presbyterian  preferences 
should  continue  to  conduct  their  discipline  in  accordance 
with  their  chosen  polity,  even  where  their  pastors  were  of 
the  opposite  type ;  that  all  cases  of  dispute  between  a 
pastor  and  a  church  of  opposite  inclinations  should  be 
determined,  if  both  parties  agreed  to  such  a  course,  by 


THE    ''PLAN  OF   UNION."  317 

the  Presbytery  or  Association  of  which  the  minister  was 
a  member,  but  if  agreement  was  impossible  then  by  a 
mutual  council  of  equal  numbers  of  Gongregationalists 
and  of  Presbyterians;  that  in  mixed  churches  a  "  standing 
committee  "  of  communicants  should  be  chosen  by  the 
church  to  administer  discipline,  one  member  of  which, 
chosen  by  the  committee  itself,  should  "  have  the  same 
right  to  sit  and  act  in  the  Presbytery  as  a  ruling  elder  of 
the  Presbyterian  church  "  ;  and  that  appeals  from  the  de- 
cision of  such  a  "  standing  committee  "  should  be  allowed, 
in  case  of  Presbyterian  members  of  a  mixed  church,  to  the 
Presbytery,  or  in  case  of  Congregational  members,  "  to  the 
body  of  the  male  communicants  of  the  church."  Appeals 
beyond  the  Presbytery  were  forbidden  to  members  of  a 
mixed  church  without  the  consent  of  the  church  itself; 
but  an  appeal  might  be  taken  by  a  Congregational  mem- 
ber to  the  judgment  of  a  "  mutual  council."  The  "  Plan  " 
clearly  contemplated  the  formation  of  Associations  as  well 
as  Presbyteries  on  the  soil  where  it  was  to  be  put  in 
operation. 

This  "  Plan,"  which  was  afterward  approved  by  other 
General  Associations  in  New  England  besides  that  of  Con- 
necticut, continued  in  full  force  until  repudiated  by  the 
"  Old  School  "  wing  of  the  Presbyterian  body  in  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  1837;  and  was  then  maintained  in  con- 
junction with  the  ''  New  School  "  body  until  abandoned 
by  the  Gongregationalists  at  the  Albany  Convention  in 
1852.  It  was  a  wholly  honorable  arrangement,  and  was 
designed  to  be  entirely  fair  to  both  parties.  Both  Gon- 
gregationalists and  Presbyterians  sacrificed  important  feat- 
ures of  their  polities  in  it.  Its  framers  seem  to  have  had 
little  thought  that  the  scanty  settlements  to  \^'hich  it  was 
to  be  applied  would  grow  to  be  among  the  strongest  of 
American  communities,  and  that  what  was  well  enough 


3l8  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

as  a  compromise  arrangement  by  which  feeble  bands  of 
Christians  could  be  associated  on  the  frontier  would  have 
a  different  look  when  the  churches  formed  under  it  grew 
vigorous. 

In  its  actual  workings,  the  "  Plan  "  operated  in  favor  of 
the  Presbyterians.  They  were  nearer  the  scene  of  mission- 
ary labor ;  their  denominational  spirit  was  more  assertive 
than  that  of  the  Congregationalism  of  the  day ;  their  Pres- 
byteries were  rapidly  spread  over  the  missionary  districts, 
and  the  natural  desire  for  fellowship  where  the  points  of 
separation  seemed  so  few  led  Congregational  ministers  to 
accept  the  welcome  offered  therein.  Moreover,  the  doc- 
trinal discussions  of  New  England  and  the  development 
of  Connecticut  consociationism  had  created  a  widespread 
feeling  in  the  older  Congregational  churches  that  Con- 
gregationalism could  not  thrive  in  unformed  communities. 
It  required  the  successful  demonstration  of  experience 
wholly  to  remove  this  misconception  from  the  New  Eng- 
land mind ;  and  even  when  western  Congregationalism  had 
shown  its  right  to  be,  the  rise  of  the  Arminianly  inclined 
theolog}^  of  Oberlin,  and  other  evidences  of  an  independent 
spirit,  led  to  unjust  suspicions  of  infection  with  doctrinal 
unsoundnesses  and  somewhat  retarded  the  growth  of  full 
cordiality  of  feeling  between  the  churches  of  the  East  and 
those  in  the  West  who  were  struggling  to  maintain  a  pure 
type  of  Congregationalism.  No  wonder,  then,  that  during 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  Presbyterian 
body  on  the  whole  gained  by  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  ;  and 
that  its  ultimate  result  was,  if  one  may  accept  the  figures 
given  by  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  A.  H.  Ross, — and  no  one  has 
devoted  more  thorough  study  to  the  subject, — the  trans- 
formation of  "  over  two  thousand  churches,  which  were 
in  origin  and  usages  Congregational,  into  Presbj-terian 
churches."     It  was  under  this  "Plan"  that  the  religious 


THE    '' PLAN  OF   UNION:'  319 

foundations  of  western  New  York,  of  Ohio,  of  Illinois,  and 
of  Michigan  were  largely  laid. 

This  outflow  of  missionary  activity  was  in  part  illustra- 
tive of  that  new  manifestation  of  interest  in  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom  characteristic  of  all 
Anglo-Saxon  Christendom  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century ;  but  its  immediate  apparent  cause,  aside  from  the 
burden  of  opportunity  laid  on  our  churches  by  the  emigra- 
tions, was  the  new  era  of  revivals  which  began  soon  after 
the  long  period  of  political  distraction  had  been  brought 
to  an  end  by  the  adoption  of  the  federal  constitution.  The 
excesses  and  excitement  of  the  Great  Awakening  had 
been  followed,  as  early  as  1 744,  by  a  period  of  spiritual  leth- 
argy which  made  the  era  of  the  Revolutionary  struggle  the 
epoch  of  lowest  spiritual  vitality  that  our  churches  have 
ever  experienced.  Doctrinal  discussion,  as  has  been  seen, 
was  extensive.  On  the  whole  the  ministry  was  brought 
into  sympathy  with  a  conception  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
Christian  life  which  made  revivals  desired,  and  which  laid 
primary  emphasis  on  "  conversion  "  rather  than  on  Chris- 
tian nurture,  though  the  opposite  tendency  was  also  de- 
veloped in  a  considerable  party  in  eastern  Massachusetts; 
but  the  spiritual  life  of  the  churches  was  little  affected. 
Slight  popular  interest  was  felt  in  religious  questions,  and 
ministers  of  the  most  opposing  views  associated  in  the 
same  ecclesiastical  fellowships  and  freely  exchanged  pulpits 
with  one  another. 

This  spiritual  lethargy  was  ended  by  the  new  religious 
awakenings.  No  such  general  excitement  marked  the  new 
revival  era  as  had  characterized  the  Great  Awakening. 
No  preacher  of  wide-extended  fame,  like  Whitefield, 
aroused  universal  feelings  of  approval  or  of  hostility  for 
his  methods.  Bodily  manifestations  of  nervous  excitement 
and  imagined  visions  were  almost  wholly  absent ;  but  the 


320  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

movement  was  continuous,  far-reaching,  and  vastly  more 
valuable  in  its  permanent  results  than  the  Great  Awak- 
ening. In  1 791  a  revival  movement  occurred  in  North 
Yarmouth,  Me.;  in  1792,  Lee,  Mass.,  East  Haddam  and 
Lyme,  Conn.,  were  similarly  visited.  The  spiritual  quick- 
ening thus  quietly  begun  extended  in  increasing  force 
all  over  New  England,  the  Middle  States,  and  the  new 
West.  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  D.  Griffin,  then  pastor  at  New 
Hartford,  Conn.,  recorded  of  this  period:  "I  saw  a  con- 
tinued succession  of  heavenly  sprinklings  ...  in  Con- 
necticut, until,  in  1799,  I  could  stand  at  my  door  in  New 
Hartford,  .  .  .  and  number  fifty  or  sixty  contiguous  con- 
gregations laid  down  in  one  field  of  divine  wonders,  and  as 
many  more  in  diiTerent  parts  of  New  England."  These 
spiritual  awakenings,  though  local,  were  often  of  great 
strength,  and  they  appeared  here  and  there  in  New  Eng- 
land and  beyond  her  borders  year  after  year.  The  power- 
ful revivals  of  1799  were  prolonged  at  least  till  1805,  and 
then,  though  lessened,  did  not  wholly  cease.  In  1802 
Yale  College  was  greatly  stirred.  The  years  1807-08 
were  seasons  of  quickening  in  Rhode  Island  and  western 
Massachusetts.  From  181 5  to  181 8  a  sixth  of  all  the 
towns  in  Connecticut  were  visited,  Massachusetts  and  New 
Hampshire  were  much  moved,  while  in  Rutland  County, 
Vt.,  there  was  almost  a  spiritual  revolution.  Again  in 
1820-23  extensive  revival  movements  appeared  in  New 
England  and  the  West,  and  once  more  in  1826-27;  but 
these  were  surpassed  in  turn  by  the  religious  interest  of 
1830-31.  Yet  later,  in  1841-42,  and  in  1857-58,  very 
extensive  awakenings  took  place.  Thus,  for  two  genera- 
tions, the  re\i\-al  became  the  characteristic  feature  of  Con- 
gregational religious  life.  These  manifestations  of  religious 
interest  had  a  distinct  character.  They  were  prevailingly 
accompanied  by  a  profound  conviction  of  sin,  a  sense  of 


SPIRITUAL    QUICKENING.  32  I 

peace  through  submission  to  God,  and  a  conscious  change 
of  purpose.  The  way  was  prepared  for  them  in  New 
England  and  the  form  of  experience  which  they  exliibited 
was  determined  in  large  measure  by  the  doctrine  and 
preaching  of  the  Edwardeans ;  and  the  revivals  in  turn 
made  the  Edwardean  theology  and  its  methods  almost  the 
exclusive  type  among  evangelical  Congregationalists  dur- 
ing the  later  two  thirds  of  the  period  of  their  continuance. 
But  the  revivals  were  far  more  than  the  result  of  any 
special  pattern  of  doctrine  or  method  of  Christian  work; 
they  were  a  general  and  profound  influence,  quickening 
and  uplifting  the  religious  life  of  the  nation  as  a  whole, 
and  their  effect  on  Congregationalism  was  almost  that  of 
a  new  birth. 

The  revivals  stimulated  all  forms  of  religious  activity. 
They  led  to  the  introduction  into  New  England  of  the 
Sunday-school,  which  Robert  Raikes  had  originated  at 
Gloucester,  England,  in  i  780 ;  they  brought  about,  speedily 
after  their  beginning,  the  extensive  adoption  of  the  evening 
prayer-meeting  in  the  larger  towns,  which  had  heretofore 
been'looked  upon  with  distrust.  But  three  of  the  con- 
sequences of  this  revival  epoch,  all  manifested  early  in  its 
history,  are  worthy  of  more  minute  attention, — the  ex- 
tension of  missionary  enterprises,  the  Unitarian  separation, 
and  the  new  systems  of  theologic  instruction. 

Of  the  beginnings  of  home  missionary  activity  enough 
has  already  been  said  in  speaking  of  the  westward  exten- 
sion of  Congregationalism  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution 
and  of  its  cooperation  with  Presbyterianism.  It  has  been 
seen  that  though  the  Connecticut  General  Association 
showed  a  missionary  spirit  as  early  as  1774,  its  work  did 
not  begin  on  an  extensive  scale  till  1793,  after  the  revivals 
had  commenced,  and  the  rapid  organization  of  missionary 
societies  in  the  New  England  States  was  from   1798  to 


322  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  ix 

1807,  when  the  first  great  wave  of  revival  impulse  was  at 
its  height.  It  was  natural  that  when  the  thoughts  of  so 
many  were  turned  toward  the  evangelization  of  the  newer 
parts  of  their  own  country,  the  vision  of  missionary  labor 
on  a  yet  larger  scale  should  rise  before  a  few. 

Doubtless  the  example  and  appeals  of  the  English  foreign 
missionary  associations,  especially  of  the  "  London  Mis- 
sionary Society,"  which  came  into  being  in  1795,  prepared 
American  religious  sentiment  to  favor  foreign  missionary 
activity ;  but,  as  far  as  any  single  human  origin  may  be 
assigned,  its  inception  in  the  Congregational  churches  was 
due  to  Samuel  John  Mills, — "  the  father  of  foreign  mission 
work  in  Christian  America."  Mills  was  born  in  1783  at 
Torringford,  Conn.,  where  his  father,  of  the  same  name, 
was  pastor.  The  father  was  a  man  well  fitted  to  give  a 
missionary  impulse  to  his  son.  An  Edwardean  preacher 
of  power,  he  was  one  of  the  missionary  pastors  sent  out 
by  the  Connecticut  General  Association  in  i  793,  and  an 
editor  of  the  "  Connecticut  Evangelical  Magazine  "  ;  while 
his  own  church  experienced  remarkable  revivals  in  1 793 
and  1799.  Brought  up  thus  in  a  missionary  atmosphere, 
the  younger  Mills  entered  Williams  College  in  1806,  and 
here  in  1808  he  organized  "  The  Brethren,"  a  little  associa- 
tion "  to  effect,  in  the  persons  of  its  members,  a  mission  or 
missions  to  the  heathen."  In  the  spring  of  18 10,  follow- 
ing his  graduation  in  1809,  Mills  and  his  society  were 
transferred  to  the  newly  instituted  Theological  Seminary 
at  Andover;  and  there  his  missionary  zeal  enkindled  or 
confirmed  the  consecration  of  at  least  six  of  his  student 
associates.  These  were  Adoniram  Judson,  a  graduate  of 
Brown  ;  Samuel  Newell  of  Harvard,  Samuel  Nott  of  Union  ; 
besides  Luther  Rice,  Gordon  Hall,  and  James  Richards, 
with  whom  Mills  had  been  associated  at  Williams  College. 
These  friends,  after  consultation  with  the  Andover  pro- 


FOREIGN  MISSIONS.  323 

fessors  and  with  Rev.  Messrs.  Samuel  Spring  and  Samuel 
Worcester,  determined  to  apply  to  the  General  Associa- 
tion of  Massachusetts, — a  ministerial  body  similar  to  the 
ancient  General  Association  of  Connecticut,  which  had 
been  formed  in  1803  and  which  represented  the  Old  Cal- 
vinists  and  Edwardeans  of  Massachusetts  rather  than  the 
Liberals, — for  support  and  direction  in  their  chosen  work. 
A  memorial  drawn  up  by  Judson  and  signed  only  by  Nott, 
Mills,  Newell,  and  himself,  lest  a  greater  number  of  can- 
didates should  imperil  the  enterprise  by  affrighting"  the 
churches,  was  presented  to  the  Association  at  Bradford, 
Mass.,  on  June  27,  and  on  June  29,  18 10,  that  body  insti- 
tuted the  "  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions,"  to  put  the  request  of  their  petitioners  into  ex- 
ecution. From  the  first  it  was  intended  that  the  Board 
should  be  more  than  a  Massachusetts  enterprise,  though 
it  was  not  at  first  planned  to  go  beyond  the  borders  of 
Congregationalism  for  its  membership  ;  and  therefore  of  the 
nine  original  commissioners  chosen  by  the  Massachusetts 
Association,  four  were  from  Connecticut,  including  Gover- 
nor Tread  well  and  President  Timothy  D  wight,  the  other 
five  being  Massachusetts  men  and  numbering  among  them 
Rev.  Messrs.  Samuel  Spring  and  Samuel  Worcester,  and 
William  Bartlett,  the  benefactor  of  Andover  Seminary. 
The  first  meeting  of  this  Board  was  held  and  its  organiza- 
tion effected  at  the  house  of  Rev.  Noah  Porter,  father  of 
the  president  of  Yale,  at  Farmington,  Conn.,  on  Septem- 
ber 5,  1 8 10. 

The  undertaking  thus  inaugurated  met  with  the  im- 
mediate approval  of  the  Congregational  churches ;  the 
foreign  missionary  cause  took  a  strong  hold  on  their  affec- 
tions, and  led  in  a  comparatively  short  time  to  large  con- 
secration of  men  and  money  to  the  work.  But  it  was  not 
easy  to  send  the  first  missionaries  to  the  heathen.      It  was 


324  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  iX. 

uncertain  at  the  beginning  how  far  the  churches  would 
support  the  work.  The  great  European  wars,  and  the 
struggle  between  England  and  the  United  States  which 
began  in  1812,  but  of  which  the  premonitory  signs  had 
been  visible  for  some  time  before  hostilities  commenced, 
made  the  problem  of  transportation  to  India,  whither  the 
first  missionaries  desired  to  go,  one  of  difficulty  and  their 
reception  uncertain.  Even  the  Massachusetts  legislature, 
from  which  a  charter  was  obtained  in  1812,  was  persuaded 
with  some  difficulty  to  create  a  corporation  to  send  money 
out  of  the  country.  It  was  not  till  February,  18 12,  after 
an  encouraging  bequest  of  $30,000  had  been  received  from 
Mrs.  Mary  Norris  of  Salem,  Mass.,  that  the  pioneer  mis- 
sionaries, Judson,  Newell,  Nott,  Hall,  and  Rice,  were  sent 
forth  to  India.  Mills,  who  had  been  so  instrumental  in 
awakening  a  missionary  spirit,  was  unable  to  go  with  his 
friends,  though  he  did  a  noble  work  as  a  home  missionary 
and  an  organizer  of  Bible  societies,  and  died  at  sea,  in 
18 18,  off  the  coast  of  Africa,  whither  he  had  gone  on  a 
voyage  designed  to  ascertain  the  prospect  of  advancing  the 
cause  of  Christ  on  that  continent  through  the  just  formed 
"  Colonization  Society."  But  even  with  the  arrival  of  the 
five  American  missionaries  at  Calcutta,  the  difficulties  of 
the  undertaking  seemed  almost  insurmountable.  The  East 
India  Company,  then  the  ruler  of  such  portions  of  India 
as  were  under  British  control,  forbade  them  to  preach  lest 
commercial  interests  should  be  endangered  by  religious 
prejudice.  The  result  was  that  Judson  went  to  Burmah, 
while,  after  months  of  negotiation,  Hall  and  Nott  obtained 
a  footing  at  Bombay,  where  at  length  Newell  joined  them. 
But  the  perplexities  of  the  missionaries  and  the  Board  were 
not  yet  over.  On  the  long  voyage  India-ward,  Judson 
had  adopted  Baptist  principles,  and  Rice  soon  followed  him. 
Tlwis  two  of  the  most  valued  of  these  missionaries  who 


THE  AMERICAN  BOARD.  325 

had  been  sent  out  with  so  much  labor  withdrew  at  once 
from  the  service  of  the  Congregational  churches ;  but  the 
event  was  not  without  its  compensations,  for  it  led,  in 
1 8 14,  to  the  founding  of  the  "  American  Baptist  Mission- 
ary Union,"  and  the  enlistment  of  that  great  body  of 
churches  in  the  cause  of  foreign  missions. 

The  American  Board  was  purely  Congregational  in  its 
origin ;  its  original  commissioners  were  chosen  by  the 
Massachusetts  General  Association,  with  the  understanding 
that  as  soon  as  the  Connecticut  General  Association  should 
ratify  the  plan  it  should  elect  a  proportion  of  the  number. 
This  was  actually  carried  out  in  181 1.  But  the  act  of  in- 
corporation, procured  from  the  Massachusetts  legislature 
in  1 8 12,  made  the  Board,  as  it  still  is,  a  self-perpetuating 
body  or  close  corporation.  The  same  feeling  of  fellow- 
ship with  other  Calvinistic  religious  bodies  that  had  been 
exhibited  in  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  of  1801  now  prompted 
the  Board,  at  its  meeting  in  September,  1812,  to  choose 
eight  Presbyterians  to  its  membership;  and,  in  1816,  to 
include  also  a  representative  from  the  Reformed  (Dutch) 
Church.  Even  before  the  establishment  of  this  connection, 
the  Board  had  been  recognized  (June,  18 12)  by  the  Pres- 
byterian General  Assembly  as  a  proper  channel  for  the 
gifts  of  Presbyterian  churches,  and  this  approval  was  re- 
peated in  more  positive  terms  in  May,  1826.  The  connec- 
tion with  the  Reformed  Church  was  not  quite  so  cordial, 
but  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  1832  it  secured  decided 
intimacy  of  association.  The  American  Board  thus  con- 
tinued to  be  interdenominational  in  its  basis  for  many  years, 
and  the  process  of  its  return  to  its  original  estate  was  a  grad- 
ual one.  In  1837  the  "  Old  School  "  wing  of  the  Presbyteri- 
ans withdrew  and  constituted  a  Board  of  its  own.  Twenty 
years  later  the  Reformed  Church  severed  its  connec- 
tion ;  and  finally,  on  the  reunion  of  the  "  Old  School  "  and 


326  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

"New  School"  divisions  of  Presbyterianism  in  1870,  the 
latter  withdrew  in  favor  of  its  own  denominational  agency, 
leaving  the  American  Board  exclusively  Congregational, 
though  individual  Presbyterians  still  continue  in  some  in- 
stances their  places  in  its  membership. 

The  Board  thus  constituted  has  had  a  history  of  honor. 
Its  original  mission  station  in  India  was  supplemented  in 
1816  by  a  mission  in  Ceylon;  in  181  7  and  1818  mission- 
aries began  work  among  the  Cherokees  and  Choctaws,  then 
in  Georgia  and  Mississippi ;  18 19  saw  the  sailing  of  laborers 
for  the  Hawaiian  Islands  and  for  Palestine.  Syria  became 
the  seat  of  a  mission  in  1823,  China  in  1829,  Constantino- 
ple in  183 1,  Persia  in  1833,  the  Madura  district  of  India 
in  1834,  Zululand  in  1835,  the  Micronesian  Islands  in  1852, 
Japan  in  1869,  Spain,  Mexico,  and  Austria  in  1872,  and 
Central  Africa  in  1880.  These,  with  their  various  subdi- 
visions and  branches,  constitute  a  field  of  labor  of  infinite 
variety,  as  well  as  great  extent.  By  1 840  the  Board  could 
report  that  it  had  sent  out  694  missionaries  in  the  thirty 
years  which  then  embraced  its  history,  and  that  it  had 
gathered  17,234  members  into  the  churches  which  it  had 
established.  The  number  of  its  missionaries  during  its 
first  half-century  was  1258 ;  while  in  1894  it  could  declare 
that  it  had  sent  2066  persons  to  the  mission  fields  and 
had  received  125,584  members  into  its  churches.  It  has 
Christianized  the  Hawaiian  and  some  of  the  Micronesian 
Islands,  it  has  profoundly  altered  the  life  of  Bulgaria  and 
Asia  Minor  for  the  better,  it  has  made  creditable  progress 
in  India,  China,  and  Japan.  Such  a  missionary  record 
may  well  be  a  cause  of  just  satisfaction. 

A  further  illustration  of  the  new  spirit  of  voluntary 
united  action  in  eflfort  essentially  of  a  missionary  character 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  organization  at  Boston  on  August  29 
and  December  7,  181 5,  of  the  "American  Society  for  Edu- 


THE    '^EDUCATION  SOCIETY:'  327 

eating  Pious  Youth  for  the  Gospel  Ministry,"  which  was 
at  first  broadly  interdenominational  and  speedily  became 
the  "American  Education  Society."  Assistance  to  enable 
needy  young  men  to  secure  a  ministerial  training  had  al- 
ready been  afforded  by  various  synods  among  the  Ameri- 
can Presbyterians  to  candidates  of  their  own  order ;  and  a 
local  society  for  this  purpose  had  been  formed  on  March  6, 
1804,  by  the  Congregational  association  meeting  at  Pawlet, 
Vt.  The  work  was  now  taken  up  on  a  large  scale ;  and, 
in  the  spirit  already  exhibited  in  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  and 
the  American  Board,  the  "  Education  Society  "  opened  its 
membership  and  extended  its  aid  to  others  than  to  Con- 
gregationalists,  especially  to  Presbyterians.  But  as  the 
Presbyterian  General  Assembly  organized  its  own  "  Board 
of  Education"  in  18 19,  this  connection  was  never  very 
extensive,  and  the  "  Education  Society  "  has  long  been, 
as  it  now  is,  distinctively  Congregational.  In  1874  the 
"  American  Education  Society  "  joined  wath  the  "  Society 
for  the  Promotion  of  Collegiate  and  Theological  Educa- 
tion at  the  West,"  an  organization  formed  at  New  York 
June  29,  1843,  to  aid  in  establishing  Christian  institutions 
for  higher  education.  The  combined  body  took  the  name 
of  the  "American  College  and  Education  Society,"  which 
it  bore  till  1893,  when,  becoming  united  with  the  "New 
West  Education  Commission"  formed  in  1879  to  promote 
"  Christian  civilization  in  Utah  and  adjacent  States  and 
Territories,"  it  reverted  to  its  earlier  name, — the  "  Amer- 
ican Education  Society."  During  its  useful  history  this 
society  has  aided  more  than  eight  thousand  candidates  for 
the  ministry,  and  its  efforts  in  behalf  of  about  thirty  col- 
leges have  been  largely  instrumental  in  building  up  the 
cause  of  higher  education,  in  which  Congregationalism  has 
always  felt  a  deep  interest,  throughout  the  newer  regions 
of  the  land. 


328  THE    CONGREGATION ALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

It  has  already  been  seen  that  the  home  missionary  activ- 
ity of  CongregationaHsm  led  to  the  formation  of  many 
comparatively  local  missionary  societies.  The  examples 
of  organizations  on  a  national  scale,  like  the  American 
Board  and  the  "  Education  Society,"  led  to  the  creation 
at  New  York  on  May  lo,  1826,  of  the  "  American  Home 
Missionary  Society," — a  body  formed  on  the  basis  of  a 
joint  association  of  Presbyterians  and  a  few  members  of 
the  Reformed  (Dutch)  Church  which  had  been  organized 
under  the  title  of  the  "  United  Domestic  Missionary  Soci- 
ety" in  1822.  The  new  "Home  Missionary  Society"  was 
of  course  voluntary  and  interdenominational,  and  it  carried 
on  its  work  in  the  spirit  of  the  "  Plan  of  Union." 

At  its  beginning  the  new  society  was  largely  Presbyte- 
rian in  its  membership ;  but  the  local  home  missionary 
bodies  of  New  England  rapidly  became  auxiliary  to  it, 
without  generally  surrendering  their  own  organization.  It 
was  at  first  heartily  approved  by  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly  ;  but  on  the  division  of  the  Presbyterian  body 
into  "  Old  School  "  and  "  New  School  "  in  1837,  the  "  Old 
School"  party  withdrew  its  countenance,  declaring  the 
work  of  the  society  "  exceedingly  injurious  to  the  peace 
and  purity  of  the  Presbyterian  Church."  The  "New 
School "  wing  continued  its  support,  however,  and,  as  a 
committee  of  that  party  affirmed  in  i860,  were  "accus- 
tomed to  regard  it  as,  in  a  sense,  peculiarly  their  own." 
But  with  the  growth  of  denominational  consciousness  re- 
lations between  the  elements  in  the  society  became  more 
strained,  and  by  i860  the  body  had  become  predomi- 
nantly Congregational,  drawing  five  sevenths  of  its  receipts 
from  Congregational  sources  and  reckoning  seven  tenths 
of  its  mission  fields  to  the  same  denomination.  As  a  re- 
sult, the  "  New  School  "  Presbyterians  withdrew  in  favor 
of  more   distinctlv  denominational  agencies  of  their  own 


THE    ''HOME  MISSIONARY  SOCIETY:'  329 

on  May  27,  1861,  and  the  society  became  wholly  Con- 
gregational,— a  change  which  was  tardily  recognized  in 
1893  by  the  alteration  of  its  name  to  the  "  Congregational 
Home  Missionary  Society."  It  has  done  an  immense 
work  in  spreading  Christian  institutions  throughout  the 
West  and  in  supporting  feeble  churches  in  all  parts  of  the 
land.  By  1893  it  could  report  that  it  had  organized  612 1 
churches,  of  which  2978  had  become  self-supporting.  In 
that  year  it  had  2002  missionaries  on  its  rolls,  and  was 
conducting  regular  religious  worship  at  3841  stations. 

It  is  evident  that  the  New  England  of  the  new  revival 
epoch  that  began  about  1791  was  a  much  more  spiritually 
awakened  and  active  land  than  the  New  England  of  most 
of  the  eighteenth  century ;  and  it  was  fortunate  for  the 
Congregational  churches  that  this  outburst  of  missionary 
zeal  and  this  new  sense  of  Christian  privilege  and  obligation 
took  place  just  before  the  separation  between  church  and 
state  was  effected  which  altered  the  whole  system  of  finan- 
cial support  on  which  the  New  England  churches  had  de- 
pended. The  changes  of  1818  in  Connecticut  and  of  1834 
in  Massachusetts  found  the  churches  filled  with  a  new 
vitality,  and  ready  to  profit  rather  than  to  receive  harm 
by  being  made  wholly  dependent  on  their  own  voluntary 
efforts. 

The  second  result  of  the  new  period  of  revivals  was  the 
Unitarian  separation, — an  outgoing  due  to  causes  long 
operative,  but  which  did  not  become  completely  accom- 
plished till  the  nineteenth  century  had  begun.  In  the 
preceding  chapter  some  account  has  been  given  of  the  rise 
of  the  Liberals  of  eastern  Massachusetts, — of  their  be- 
ginnings in  the  old  Arminianism  that  was  at  first  largely 
a  disbelief  in  the  sharper  points  of  Calvinism  ;  of  their 
strengthening  during  the  reaction  from  the  excesses  of  the 
Great  Awakening;  of  the  influence  of  English  Arminian 


330  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

and  Arian  writers ;  and  of  the  teachings  of  men  of  talent 
and  in  many  ways  of  worth,  hke  Lemuel  Briant,  Jonathan 
May  hew,  and  Charles  Chauncy.  It  has  been  seen  that  by 
the  end  of  the  Revolution  there  were,  or  had  recently  been, 
pastors  in  eastern  Massachusetts  who  openly  denied  the 
total  depravity  of  man,  who  publicly  controverted  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  and  who  advocated  high 
Arian  views  of  the  Godhead.  These  men  naturally  dwelt 
in  their  preaching  on  the  moral  duties  and  on  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  virtues,  rather  than  on  their  doubts  and  disbe- 
liefs. Preachers  who  are  unopposed  usually  prefer  to  be 
positive  rather  than  negative ;  and  till  the  Unitarian  posi- 
tion was  fully  brought  out  by  the  criticisms  of  its  oppo- 
nents, the  sermons,  and  doubtless  the  thinking,  of  the 
Liberals  were  more  marked  by  omissions  than  by  actual 
denials.  Then,  too,  the  prominence  given  by  the  Revolu- 
tion and  the  subsequent  era  of  political  creation  to  the 
rights  and  duties  of  man  made  it  natural  for  ministers  of 
no  great  keenness  of  doctrinal  interest  to  make  ethical 
questions  their  main  burden  of  discourse;  and  no  ministers 
were  more  patriotic  in  the  Revolutionary  struggle  or  more 
hearty  in  entering  into  discussion  of  the  problems  which  it 
involved  than  the  Massachusetts  Liberals. 

The  first  organized  avowal  of  anti-Trinitarian  beliefs  was 
made  by  the  congregation  worshiping  in  King's  Chapel, 
— the  oldest  Episcopal  body  in  Boston.  The  rector  of 
that  society.  Rev.  Henry  Caner,  had  fled  to  Halifax 
with  his  loyalist  friends  when  Boston  was  evacuated  by 
the  British  in  1776,  and  it  remained  without  a  minister 
till  1782,  when  the  congregation  called  Rev.  James  Free- 
man, a  young  man  of  twenty-three.  Both  minister  and 
people  found  that  their  views  were  so  strongly  anti-Trini- 
tarian that  the  expressions  of  the  Prayer- Book  were  dis- 
tasteful, and  they  proceeded  in  1785  to  revise  the  formulae 


THE    UNITARIAN  SETA  RATION.  331 

of  prayer, — a  course  of  action  which  Freeman  warmly  de- 
fended from  the  pulpit.  But  such  radical  anti-Trinitarian 
changes  naturally  led  Bishops  Seabury  of  Connecticut  and 
Provoost  of  New  York  to  refuse  ordination,  and  there- 
fore on  November  18,  1787,  the  representatives  of  King's 
Chapel  congregation  themselves  set  Freeman  apart  to  his 
office,  much  as  an  early  Congregational  church  might  have 
ordained  its  minister. 

This  action  of  the  ancient  Episcopal  congregation  of 
Boston  was  regarded  as  extreme,  and  it  produced  no  im- 
mediate effect  on  the  Congregational  churches  of  the  town  ; 
but  the  general  prevalence  of  anti-Trinitarian  sentiments 
among  them  is  evidenced  by  the  publication  in  i  795  by 
Rev.  Dr  Jeremy  Belknap,  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
Church  in  Federal  Street,  of  a  "  Collection  of  Psalms  and 
Hymns."  This  aid  to  worship,  which  soon  came  into  ex- 
tensive use  in  Boston  and  vicinity,  while  expressing  the 
utmost  affection  for  the  Saviour  and  giving  him  a  high 
Arian  exaltation,  omitted  or  altered  all  references  to  him 
as  God  or  all  intimations  of  a  Trinity  in  the  divine  ex- 
istence. A  new  collection  of  "Extracts"  from  Emlyn's 
"Humble  Inquiry"  was  once  more  put  forth,  in  1790; 
and  in  1795  Rev.  John  Clarke,  Chauncy's  cultivated  and 
scholarly  associate  and  successor  in  the  pastorate  of  the 
First  Boston  Church,  published  "  An  Answer  to  the  Ques- 
tion, Why  are  you  a  Christian?  "  which,  though  it  ascribes 
a  lofty  function  to  Christ  and  holds  full  faith  in  his  miracles, 
dwells  primarily  on  the  ethical  aspects  of  the  gospel,  and 
is  exceedingly  "liberal"  in  tone.  Yet  Boston  was  not 
ready  for  a  bald  Socinianism,  like  that  of  Priestley,  and  a 
proposition  to  invite  the  English  Unitarian  leader  to  come 
thither  in  1794  found  no  considerable  encouragement. 
But  by  May,  1 796,  Freeman  could  write  to  an  English 
friend :  "  The  Unitarian  doctrine  appears  to  be  still  upon 


332  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [CiiAr.  ix. 

the  increase.  I  am  acquainted  with  a  number  of  ministers, 
particularly  in  the  southern  part  of  this  State,  who  avow 
and  publicly  preach  this  sentiment." 

While  these  theories  had  been  spreading  in  eastern 
Massachusetts,  the  Edwardean  teachings  of  western  Mas- 
sachusetts and  of  Connecticut  had  also  been  gaining  a 
foothold  in  the  region.  At  Plymouth  Chandler  Robbins, 
a  pupil  and  friend  of  Bellamy,  held  the  pastorate  of  the  old 
Mayflower  Church  from  1760  to  1799;  at  Newburyport 
the  able  Hopkinsian  Samuel  Spring  was  pastor  from  1777 
to  1 8 19;  Charlestown  had  for  its  minister,  from  1789  to 
1820,  the  gifted  and  polemic  Jedidiah  Morse,  a  pupil  of 
the  younger  Edwards ;  while  Nathanael  Emmons,  the 
most  powerful  leader  of  the  ultra- Edwardean  school,  made 
his  home  a  theological  seminary  and  his  pulpit  a  theologic 
fortress  at  Franklin  from  1773  to  1827.  With  the  begin- 
ning of  the  revivals  and  the  new  sense  of  religious  privilege 
and  obligation  which  began  to  manifest  itself  in  a  mission- 
ary spirit  during  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  influence  of  these  men  was  greatly  increased.  They 
and  their  party  had  been  the  advocates  of  a  more  spiritual 
and  evangelical  type  of  religion  in  the  depressed  period 
before  the  revivals  began,  and  the  new  revival  spirit  at 
once  made  Edwardean  men  and  measures  popular  wher- 
ever the  Liberal  theology  had  not  won  complete  control. 
As  the  eighteenth  century  drew  toward  a  close  the  more 
conservative  churches  began  to  awake.  In  Essex  County, 
for  instance,  during  the  decade  of  1791  to  1801,  "the 
churches  are  aroused  to  scrutinize  more  carefully  the  doc- 
trinal views  of  their  pastors ;  and  when  a  pulpit  is  vacated 
by  the  removal  of  an  Arminian,  or  a  semi-Arminian,  it  is 
somehow  pretty  sure  to  be  filled  with  a  man  of  a  more 
Orthodox  stamp";  and  the  same  thing  was  true,  only  in 
less  degree,  of  other  districts  of  eastern  Massachusetts.    The 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  333 

Edwardeans  and  Old  Calvinists,  without  wholly  ignoring 
their  differences,  felt  that  they  had  a  common  cause  to  de- 
fend,— the  cause  of  what  they  loved  to  designate  as  that 
of  "evangelical  truth."  As  the  new  evangelical  move- 
ment became  more  pronounced  and  aggressive,  ministers 
and  churches  who  sympathized  with  it  began  to  recognize 
how  far  some  of  their  associates  had  drifted  almost  unper- 
ceived  into  Liberalism,  and  to  wonder  how  such  changes 
could  have  taken  place  around  them  without  concealment. 
But  such  a  charge,  though  a  few  passages  to  support  it 
may  be  quoted  from  the  writings  of  Freeman  and  others, 
is  an  essential  injustice  to  the  Liberals ;  it  was  rather  that 
the  more  conservative  element  had  been  asleep. 

Evidence  of  the  evangelical  awakening  began  to  be 
patent  by  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  with 
the  rising  tide  of  Edwardean  and  revivalistic  feeling  the 
conservative  elements  became  decidedly  aggressive  and 
determined  to  purge  the  anti-Trinitarians  from  the  Con- 
gregational body.  In  1798  a  council  refused  to  install 
Rev.  Clark  Brown  at  Brimfield,  Mass.,  among  other  reasons, 
on  account  of  denials  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  similar  to 
the  Arian  speculations  which  he  put  forth  to  the  world  the 
next  year  in  his  tract,  "  The  Character  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ."  This  refusal  aroused  much  opposi- 
tion. An  anonymous  pamphlet  was  at  once  published  at 
Springfield,  Mass.,  under  the  title  of  "  Popish  Hierarchy 
suppressed  by  Buonaparte  in  Italy :  and  his  Holiness  ex- 
erting his  Influence,  in  a  late  Ecclesiastical  Council  at 
Brimfield,"  in  which  the  action  of  the  council  was  de- 
nounced as  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  A  more  compliant 
council  settled  Mr.  Brown  a  few  months  later.  In  1 799 
the  "  Massachusetts  Missionary  Society  "  was  formed,  as 
has  been  already  narrated;  and  in  1803  the  foundations 
of  a  new  state  ministerial  gathering  were  laid, — the  Mas- 


334  '^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

sachusetts  General  Association, — an  assembly  additional 
to,  and  more  efficient  than,  the  ancient  Ministerial  Con- 
vention. The  new  organization  came  into  favor  with  some 
difficulty.  It  was  recognized  and  opposed  as  the  work  of 
the  evangelical  party ;  but  the  extreme  Independency  of 
Nathanael  Emmons  led  him  and  his  Hopkinsian  friends  to 
show  the  same  hostility  to  the  enterprise  that  the  Liberals 
manifested  for  other  reasons.  Its  formation,  however,  was 
a  distinct  proof  of  the  increasing  strenuousness  of  the 
opponents  of  advancing  Liberalism,  and  of  the  growing 
tightening  of  theological  lines. 

The  first  church  to  be  divided  by  the  rising  contest, — 
unless  the  rather  obscure  schism  at  Taunton  in  1792  be  an 
exception, — was,  curiously  enough,  the  old  Pilgrim  Church 
at  Plymouth.  After  the  death  of  Rev.  Chandler  Robbins, 
in  1799,  the  Plymouth  Church  called  Rev.  James  Kendall, 
— a  man  of  "  liberal  "  sentiments, — as  their  pastor,  by  a 
small  majority  of  the  communicants  but  with  the  well-nigh 
unanimous  approval  of  the  parish.  His  ordination  was 
followed  after  some  months  by  the  withdrawal,  on  Octo- 
ber I,  1 80 1,  of  almost  exactly  one  half  of  the  members  of 
the  ancient  church,  and  their  constitution  into  a  church  of 
the  ancient  faith,  while  the  Mayflower  Church,  as  an  organ- 
ization, passed  fully  to  the  party  soon  to  be  known  as 
Unitarian.  A  year  later,  September  8,  1802,  Rev.  Sam- 
uel Worcester  was  dismissed  from  his  charge  at  Fitchburg, 
Mass.,  because  of  a  Calvinism  displeasing  to  the  parish, 
though  not  distasteful  to  the  church. 

But  the  first  real  test  of  strength  between  the  two  parties 
that  was  tried  on  any  considerable  scale  took  place  over 
the  choice  of  a  successor  to  the  decidedly  Old  Calvinist, 
Rev.  Dr.  David  Tappan,  whose  death,  in  August,  1803, 
left  vacant  the  Mollis  Professorship  of  Divinity  in  Harvard 
College, — a  choice  which  determined  what  influences  were 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  335 

to  be  dominant  in  that  seat  of  learning.  The  importance 
of  the  decision  was  keenly  felt,  and  both  sides  put  forth 
their  efforts.  At  the  time  of  Tappan's  death  the  corpora- 
tion was  equally  divided  and  no  choice  was  made.  The 
candidate  of  the  Liberal  side  was  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  of 
Hingham,  Mass.,  his  opponents  favored  Rev.  Jesse  Apple- 
ton,  of  Hampton,  N.  H.,  soon  to  become  president  of 
Bowdoin  College.  In  them  the  two  types  of  theology 
were  brought  into  opposing  contrast.  Death  having 
changed  -the  complexion  of  the  corporation,  the  struggle 
issued  on  February  5,  1805,  in  the  election  of  Ware_,  and 
in  the  manifest  passage  of  New  England's  oldest  college 
to  the  control  of  the  anti-Trinitarians. 

The  decision  as  to  the  future  attitude  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege aroused  public  attention  as  nothing  yet  had  done  ;  it 
was  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  foundation  of  Andover 
Seminary,  as  there  will  be  cause  to  note  a  little  later  in 
this  chapter ;  and  it  was  speedily  followed  by  a  bitter  liter- 
ary warfare.  In  1805  Rev.  Dr.  Jedidiah  Morse,  of  Charles- 
town,  attacked  the  whole  transaction  in  his  "  True  Reasons 
on  which  the  Election  of  the  Hollis  Professor  of  Divinity 
in  Harvard  College  was  opposed."  But  more  permanent 
weapons  than  ephemeral  pamphlets  were  also  resorted  to. 
In  November,  1803,  several  prominent  Boston  Liberals 
had  established  the  "  Monthly  Anthology,"  a  magazine 
decidedly  sympathetic  with  their  cast  of  doctrine,  but 
showing  also  that  tendency  toward  literature  which  was 
so  marked  and  so  fruitful  a  characteristic  of  the  early  New 
England  Unitarians.  And  now,  in  June,  1805,  and  largely 
through  the  influence  of  Morse,  the  "  Panoplist "  was 
founded,  as  an  active  defender  of  ancient  faith,  "  by  an 
Association  of  Friends  to  Evangelical  Truth,"  who  were 
broadly  Calvinistic  rather  than  Hopkinsian.  From  the 
first  it  was  an  aggressive,  vigorous  magazine ;   and  there 


336  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

can  be  no  doubt  that  it  did  much  to  compel  the  Liberals 
to  define  their  position.  United  with  the  decidedly  Hop- 
kinsian  "  Massachusetts  Missionary  Magazine  "  in  1808,  it 
ultimately  became  in  a  certain  sense  the  ancestor  of  that 
non-polemic  medium  of  Congregational  missionary  intel- 
ligence, the  "  Missionary  Herald,"  which  is  published  by 
the  American  Board  to  the  present  day. 

One  more  publication  of  the  year  1805  attracted  wide 
attention, — the  work  of  Rev.  John  Sherman,  of  Mansfield, 
Conn.,  entitled  "  One  God  in  one  Person  only,  and  Jesus 
Christ  a  Being  distinct  from  God,  dependent  upon  Him 
for  his  Existence  and  his  various  Powers."  This  was  the 
most  positive  anti-Trinitarian  treatise  that  had  yet  origi- 
nated in  New  England.  Sherman  was  in  a  region  where 
Liberalism  found  little  ministerial  sympathy,  and  he  was 
promptly  dismissed  by  a  mutual  council,  though  approved 
by  a  large  portion  of  his  congregation.  The  transaction 
caused  much  discussion,  and  coming  so  speedily  after  the 
Harvard  College  controversy,  added  fuel  to  the  flames  of 
public  excitement. 

Meanwhile  the  Liberal  pulpit  of  Boston  had  received  two 
notable  accessions  in  the  persons  of  Rev.  William  Ellery 
Channing, — on  the  whole  the  most  distinguished  of  Ameri- 
can Unitarians, — who  became  pastor  of  the  Federal  Street 
Church  in  1803  at  the  age  of  twenty-three;  and  of  Joseph 
Stevens  Buckminster,  who  entered  the  service  of  Brattle 
Church  in  January,  1805,  when  not  quite  twenty-one,  and 
died  seven  years  later,  but  who  lives  in  tradition  even  yet 
as  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  American  preachers.  Both 
these  ministers  greatly  advanced  the  popularity  of  Lib- 
eralism in  the  town  of  their  labors ;  and  the  situation  be- 
came one  increasingly  demanding  positive  action  if  the 
evangelical   party  was   not  to  be  driven   from   the   local 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  337 

field.  It  was  with  this  feeling,  doubtless,  that  Rev.  Dr. 
Morse,. the  evangelical  champion  of  Charlestown,  procured 
the  settlement  of  Rev.  Joshua  Huntington,  a  Yale  gradu- 
ate, who  had  studied  theology  under  President  Timothy 
Dwight  and  under  Morse  himself,  as  colleague  pastor  of 
the  Old  South  Church, — the  most  conservative  of  all  the 
Boston  churches, — in  May,  1808.  A  few  months  later, — 
December,  1808, — the  Second  Church  in  Dorchester  settled 
an  actively  evangelical  minister  in  the  person  of  Rev.  John 
Codman,  destined  to  fill  a  prominent  place  in  the  theologi- 
cal conflicts  of  the  next  few  years.  But  it  illustrates  the 
still  outwardly  undivided  state  of  Congregationalism  that 
at  the  first  of  these  installations  Morse  and  Channing  took 
part  together  in  the  services,  and  at  the  second  Channing 
preached  the  sermon. 

A  much  more  positive  and  aggressive  evangelical  ad- 
vance was  the  organization,  on  February  2"],  1809,  partly 
as  a  result  of  the  recent  preaching  of  Rev.  Dr.  Henry 
Kollock,  of  Savannah,  Ga.,  of  a  new  church  in  Boston 
which  was  soon  known  as  that  of  Park  Street.  With 
the  countenance  of  Morse  and  Codman  this  body  was 
made  illustrative  of  a  strict  type  of  Calvinism  in  its  doc- 
trinal basis,  and  on  the  settlement  of  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  D. 
Griffin, — a  pupil  of  the  younger  Edwards, — as  its  pastor 
in  181 1,  its  eloquent  and  able  pulpit  presented  a  positive 
Hopkinsian  type  of  theology  such  as  Boston  had  not  heard 
before,  and  presented  it  with  great  power.  Such  preach- 
ing was  sorely  needed,  for,  in  his  sermon  at  the  Ministerial 
Convention  of  18 10,  Rev.  Dr.  Eliphalet  Porter,  of  Rox- 
bury,  had  declared  of  the  doctrines  of  "  Original  Sin,  a 
Trinity  in  Unity,  the  Mere  Humanity,  Super-Angelic 
Nature,  or  Absolute  Deity  of  Christ,  and  the  Absolute 
Eternity  of  Punishment,   ...    I  cannot  place  my  finger 


338  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

on  any  one  article  in  the  list  of  doctrines  just  mentioned, 
the  belief  or  rejection  of  which  I  consider  essential  to  the 
Christian  faith  or  character." 

The  ancient  New  England  custom  approved  far  more 
frequent  pulpit  exchanges  than  are  customary  at  pres- 
ent,— in  many  towns  as  often  as  once  in  three  or  four 
weeks, — and  about  the  time  of  Griffin's  settlement  the 
evangehcal  party  began  to  draw  what  eventually  proved 
the  line  of  separation  between  them  and  the  Liberals  by  re- 
fusing to  exchange  with  those  whose  soundness  they  sus- 
pected. Rev.  John  Codman,  whose  settlement  at  Dorches- 
ter has  just  been  noted,  was  a  leader  in  this  movement,  and 
the  defense  of  his  right  thus  to  refuse  ministerial  fellowship 
caused  him  a  bitter  contest  with  a  part  of  his  parishioners, 
resulting  in  the  calling  of  two  councils,  in  i8ii  and  1812, 
and  his  maintenance  of  his  pastoral  position  only  by  the 
casting  vote  of  the  moderator  of  the  latter  of  these  bodies. 

The  position  of  exclusion  from  fellowship  thus  taken  by 
Codman  and  others  toward  the  Liberals  was  a  sign  of  the 
growing  strength  and  self-respect  of  the  evangelical  party ; 
and  the  breach  now  opening  was  rapidly  widened  by  an 
event  of  the  year  1815.  In  1812  Rev.  Thomas  Belsham, 
of  London,  who  since  the  death  of  Priestley  had  been  the 
leader  of  the  English  Unitarians,  had  published  a  "  Life 
of  the  Rev.  Theophilus  Lindsey,"  in  which  he  had  printed 
letters  from  Freeman  and  other  prominent  citizens  of  Bos- 
ton giving  accounts  of  the  progress  of  Liberalism  in  that 
community.  For  some  reason  the  work  attracted  little 
notice  at  first ;  but  in  1 8 1 5  the  portions  relating  to  America 
were  republished  in  a  pamphlet  at  Boston,  probably  at  the 
instance  of  Morse,  under  the  title  of  "American  Unitarian- 
ism  ;  or,  A  Brief  History  of  the  Progress  and  Present  State 
of  the  Unitarian  Churches  in  America."  This  publication 
aroused  great  commotion ;    and  its  real  significance  was 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  339 

evident  in  its  title.  The  word  "  Unitarian  "  at  that  day 
popularly  signified  an  asserter  of  the  mere  humanity  of 
Christ,  and  a  semi-materialist  in  religion,  such  as  Priestley 
had  been.  Such  a  "  Unitarian  "  Belsham  was  to  a  large 
extent.  But  the  Boston  Liberals,  with  possibly  one  excep- 
tion, were  still  Arians  and  supernaturalists,  they  were  not 
"  Unitarians  "  in  the  then  odious  sense  of  that  word.  Yet 
Freeman  and  William  Wells,  Belsham's  correspondents, 
had  spoken  of  the  movement  as  "  Unitarian,"  and  Belsham, 
who  was  a  "  Unitarian  "  in  the  Priestleian  sense,  had  natu- 
rally made  the  most  of  the  epithet,  though  Wells  at  least 
took  prompt  occasion  to  declare  that  he  had  used  the  term 
to  indicate  "  a  Christian,  not  a  believer  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,"  rather  than  in  the  narrow  significance  that 
Belsham  attached  to  it.  But  the  Liberals  had  all  along 
asserted  that  their  departures  from  the  ancient  faith  were 
moderate  and  non-destructive,  and  in  this  pamphlet  they 
seemed  identified  wholly  with  the  extreme  English  party 
which  was  generally  looked  upon  as  little  better  than 
infidel.  In  a  very  able  review  of  the  pamphlet  in  June, 
18 1 5,  probably  from  the  pen  of  Jeremiah  Evarts,  the 
"  Panoplist "  pushed  this  identification,  asserting:  "We 
shall  feel  ourselves  warranted  hereafter,  to  speak  of  the 
fact  as  certain,  that  Unitarianism  is  the  predominant  relig- 
ion among  the  ministers  and  churches  of  Boston,"  and 
declaring  that  "  Unitarianism  and  Lifidelity  are  nearly  re- 
lated indeed.  Mr.  Wells,  who  is  a  hopeful  pupil  of  the 
Priestleian  school,  says  that  they  are  identical.  '  Unita- 
rianism,' says  he,  '  consists  rather  in  not  believing.'  " 

This  extreme  characterization  of  the  Liberal  party,  for 
which  their  English  friends  and  the  more  radical  repre- 
sentatives of  the  movement  in  America  had  opened  the 
way,  led  to  a  great  commotion.  Channing,  who  w^as  an 
Arian,  and  a  believer  in  a  certain  sense  in  the  atonement, 


340  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

came  into  the  field,  within  a  month  of  the  "  Panoplist's  " 
review,  with  a  protest  against  "  the  Aspersions  contained 
in  a  late  number  of  the  '  Panoplist,'  "  in  the  form  of  a  letter 
to  Rev.  S.  C.  Thacher,  a  brother  Boston  minister.  In  this 
letter  he  described  the  method  of  the  "  Panoplist "  as  a 
"  criminal  instance  of  unfairness,"  and  declared  that  the 
statement  that  "  the  great  body  of  Liberal  Christians  are 
Unitarians,  in  Mr.  Belsham's  sense  of  that  word  ...  is 
false."  "The  word  Unitarian,  taken  in  .  .  .  its  true 
sense,  .  .  .  includes  all  who  believe  that  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction of  persons  in  God."  In  that  sense,  Channing 
averred,  "  My  worship  and  sentiments  have  been  Unita- 
rian ;"  but  his  Unitarianism  and  that  of  most  of  his  brethren 
held,  he  affirmed,  "  that  Jesus  Christ  is  more  than  man, 
that  he  existed  before  the  world,  that  he  literally  came 
from  heaven  to  save  our  race,  that  he  sustains  other  offices 
than  those  of  a  teacher  and  witness  to  the  truth,  and  that 
he  still  acts  for  our  benefit,  and  is  our  intercessor  with  the 
Father."  To  this  letter.  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Worcester,  who 
had  been  dismissed  from  his  Fitchburg  charge  for  his 
evangelical  sentiments  in  1802  and  who  was  now  settled 
at  Salem,  Mass.,  made  vigorous  reply.  Channing  in  turn 
answered,  and  a  sharp  exchange  of  pamphlets  followed. 
But  the  fact  was;  that  though  the  Liberals  might  protest 
against  "  a  system  of  exclusion,"  the  separation  between 
them  and  the  evangelical  party  was  a  reality,  and  a  defi- 
nite name  for  the  new  denomination  was  a  great  conven- 
ience. So  convenient  was  it  that  Channing  and  the  other 
Liberal  leaders  began  at  once  to  use  the  term  "  Unitarian  " 
to  describe  their  own  party,  though  of  course  in  the  since 
popular  New  England  signification  of  a  denier  of  the 
Trinity,  without  defining  the  exact  quality  of  that  denial. 
The  Unitarians  were  now  to  all  intents  a  distinct  denom- 
ination, though  this  distinction  became  more  manifest  and 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  341 

the  evangelical  withdrawal  from  fellowship  with  them  more 
pronounced  after  1 8 1 9.  On  May  5 th  of  that  year  Channing 
preached  his  famous  sermon  at  the  ordination  of  Rev.  Jared 
Sparks  at  Baltimore,  Md., — a  sermon  which  was  a  careful 
setting  forth  not  only  of  the  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  God, 
but  of  the  whole  system  of  God's  dealings  with  men,  as 
the  preacher  conceived  them.  Though  not  representing 
the  prevalent  type  of  modern  Unitarianism,  it  has  been 
regarded  as  a  Unitarian  classic.  To  this  discourse  Prof. 
Moses  Stuart  of  Andover  gave  a  strong  reply  during  the 
same  year,  to  which  Prof.  Andrews  Norton  of  Harvard, 
Channing's  friend,  made  answer  defending  the  Unitarian 
position.  Channing's  Baltimore  sermon  was  also  the  oc- 
casion of  the  vigorous  "  Letters  to  Unitarians  "  put  forth 
in  1820  by  Prof.  Leonard  Woods,  Stuart's  colleague  at 
Andover,  which  drew  forth  the  "  Letters  to  Trinitarians 
and  Calvinists  "  from  Prof.  Henry  Ware  of  Harvard.  This 
discussion  and  the  rejoinders  which  followed  on  both  sides 
covered  the  whole  range  of  doctrines  in  debate,  but  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  separation  between  the  evan- 
gelical Congregationalists  and  the  Unitarians  had  not  be- 
come so  complete  as  to  make  these  elaborate  publications 
productive  of  little  actual  result. 

The  year  1 8 1 5  may  therefore  be  assigned  for  convenience 
as  the  time  of  the  Unitarian  separation, — though  exactness 
in  date  is  difficult  where  the  marks  of  division  were  ex- 
hibited, as  they  were  in  this  case,  by  local  action,  by  re- 
fusals to  exchange,  and  withdrawals  of  fellowship,  rather 
than  the  widely  visible  schisms  which  rend  more  centralized 
ecclesiastical  associations.  The  real  division, — the  division 
of  spirit, — was  of  course  much  earlier.  From  1 8 1 7  to  1 840 
the  separation  of  local  churches  went  on  vigorously,  and  of 
these  local  drawings  apart  the  most  famous,  by  reason  of 
the  legal  decision  to  which  it  gave  rise,  was  that  at  Ded- 


342  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap,  ix 

ham,  Mass.,  in  1818.  In  that  town  the  majority  of  the 
church-members  being  evangehcal,  the  society,  i.e.,  the 
legal  voters  of  the  First  Parisli  of  Dedham,  who  were  pre- 
ponderatingly  Unitarian,  took  the  initiative  and,  in  spite  of 
the  protests  of  two  thirds  of  the  church,  called  Rev.  Alvan 
Lamson  as  their  minister  and  invited  a  council  of  Unitarians 
to  ordain  him.  The  council,  which  included  Channing, 
Ware,  President  Kirkland  of  Harvard,  and  other  men  of 
prominence,  showed  its  partisan  spirit  by  voting,  in  spite 
of  a  protest  from  the  majority  of  the  church,  that  "  whereas 
cases  may  exist  in  which  a  majority  of  a  church  do  not 
concur  with  the  religious  society  in  the  call  of  a  minister, 
.  .  .  such  cases  may  still  be  so  urgent  as  to  authorize  an 
ecclesiastical  council  to  proceed  to  the  ordination."  Natu- 
rally the  council  felt  that  such  an  astounding  departure 
from  Congregational  usage  demanded  an  explanation,  and 
they  therefore  adopted  a  long  justificatory  declaration  in 
which  they  affirmed  that  "  the  council  regard  the  well- 
known  usage,  according  to  which,  the  first  step  in  electing 
a  pastor  is  taken  by  the  church,  as  in  the  main  wise  and 
beneficial "  ;  but  also  claimed  "  that  circumstances  may 
exist  in  which  a  minister  may  be  ordained  over  a  parish 
without  the  concurrence  of  the  church  connected  with  it  "  ; 
and  that  "  greater  good  is  to  be  expected  to  this  society 
and  to  the  church  in  general "  from  this  ordination  than 
from  its  refusal.  But  it  is  not  surprising  that  this  "  greater 
good  "  was  not  apparent  to  the  evangelical  majority  of  the 
church,  which  now  withdrew  from  the  Unitarian  minority. 
The  legal  question  now  arose  as  to  which  faction  of  the 
ancient  church  was  the  First  Church  of  Dedham,  and 
entitled  to  use  the  meeting-house  and  property  of  the 
society ;  and  this  case  was  carried  to  the  Massachusetts 
Supreme  Court,  where  after  arguments  by  Daniel  Webster 
and  Theron  Metcalf  on  the  various  merits  of  the  dispute,  it 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  343 

was  decided  in  1820  that  a  church  exists  only  in  connec- 
tion with  a  society,  and  in  case  of  division  in  the  church 
only  that  faction  which  is  recognized  by  the  society  has  a 
right  to  the  name  and  the  use  of  the  property. 

Under  the  operation  of  this  Dedham  decision  the  pre- 
vailing Unitarianism  of  the  societies  in  many  of  the  ancient 
towns  of  eastern  Massachusetts  led  to  the  enrollment  of 
the  titles  of  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  earliest  Con- 
gregational churches  of  New  England  in  the  list  of  Unita- 
rian churches.  A  careful  report  prepared  by  a  committee 
of  the  Massachusetts  General  Association  in  1836  enu- 
merates 81  cases  of  ecclesiastical  division,  in  which  3900 
evangelical  members  withdrew,  leaving  property  to  the 
value  of  more  than  $600,000  for  the  use  of  1282  Unitarian 
fellow-members  who  remained.  But  while  the  excision  of 
Unitarianism  was  a  cause  of  division  in  many  churches,  it 
is  but  just  to  say  that  a  considerable  number  of  ancient 
Puritan  churches  found  themselves  without  serious  con- 
troversy on  the  Unitarian  side.  This  was  noticeably  the 
case  in  Boston,  where  of  the  fourteen  churches  of  the  Con- 
gregational order  existing  in  1800  within  the  large  territory 
now  embraced  by  the  city  limits,  all  but  two,  the  Old  South 
of  Boston  and  the  First  Church  of  Charlestown,  became  Uni- 
tarian, and  for  the  most  part  without  internal  commotion.  It 
has  been  ascertained  by  a  careful  student  of  Massachusetts 
ecclesiastical  history, — Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  S.  Clark, — that  96 
churches  in  all  were  lost  from  the  Congregational  rolls, 
though  in  a  large  portion  of  these  cases  the  evangelical 
members  who  withdrew  formed  new  organizations  to  take 
their  places.  But  many  of  the  names  thus  lost  were  ven- 
erable for  their  historic  associations,  and  the  ability,  wealth, 
and  social  or  political  distinction  of  those  who  withdrew  to 
the  early  Unitarians  was  such  as  to  make  the  loss  a  severe 
one  from  a  worldly  point  of  view. 


344  '^H^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

The  Unitarian  movement  was  almost  strictly  local.  Out- 
side of  eastern  Massachusetts,  the  adjacent  portions  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  one  or  two  of  the  older  towns  of  Maine, 
it  has  gained  little  footing.  No  Connecticut  church  has 
ever  become  Unitarian,  except  that  of  Brooklyn,  and  there 
the  evangelical  portion  has  kept  the  name  and  maintained 
the  field  in  large  measure.  Connecticut  soil  has  proved 
unfavorable  for  the  planting  of  Unitarianism.  A  few  Uni- 
tarian churches  have  found  root  in  western  Massachusetts 
and  Vermont ;  but  in  general  the  regions  where  Edward- 
eanism  had  become  powerful  before  1800  have  given  scanty 
welcome  to  Unitarian  speculations.  Nor  has  Unitarianism 
itself  escaped  the  control  of  an  ever-increasing  radicalism. 
The  Arian  and  supernatural  type  of  the  separation  gave 
place  largely  to  the  "  transcendental  "  school  before  the 
middle  of  the  century  was  reached,  and  while  Unitarianism 
includes  all  shades  of  belief  from  a  conservatism  that  is 
almost  orthodox  to  a  radicalism  ready  to  dispense  with  the 
Christian  name  altogether,  its  general  tendency  has  carried 
it  farther  and  farther  away  from  the  now  seemingly  mod- 
erate liberalism  of  a  Channing  or  a  Norton. 

The  Unitarian  excision  is  the  only  separation  of  impor- 
tance in  the  history  of  American  Congregationalism.  Uni- 
tarianism was  a  movement  of  slow  growth,  a  gradual  change 
in  attitude  toward  the  main  truths  of  the  gospel,  and  was 
to  some  extent  due  to  the  introduction  of  a  different  type 
of  culture  from  that  which  had  characterized  New  England. 
In  no  invidious  sense  it  may  be  said  that  a  high  degree  of 
moral  rectitude  of  conduct,  a  general  diffusion  of  material 
comfort,  and  a  comparatively  unemotional  type  of  relig- 
ious experience,  had  idealized  human  nature  in  the  thought 
of  many,  so  that  a  vivid  perception  of  the  power  of  sin  and 
of  the  greatness  of  the  redemption  necessary  to  overcome 
its  effects  had  been  lost.     The  same  conditions  of  general 


THE    UNITARIAN  SEPARATION.  345 

comfort  and  social  well-being  tended  to  develop  in  the  class 
to  which  Unitarianism  powerfully  appealed  that  keen  ap- 
preciation of  literary  form  which  makes  the  roll  of  New 
England  men  of  letters  so  largely  a  record  of  Unitarian 
names.  And  there  was  in  the  movement  also  a  deep  and 
unselfish  humanitarian  feeling  and  a  high  sense  of  duty, 
not  due  to  material  conditions  but  to  the  finer  ethical 
effects  of  that  Puritan  training  which  Unitarians  and 
Evangelicals  alike  inherit,  which  made  many  of  the  Unita- 
rians conspicuous  as  leaders  of  social  and  political  reform. 
It  was  a  movement  which  exemplified  many  noble  and  de- 
sirable qualities  in  its  more  conspicuous  representatives ; 
but  it  was,  from  a  spiritual  point  of  view,  none  the  less  a 
movement  which  lost  touch  with  those  needs  and  feelings 
that  the  church  universal  has  always  recognized  as  deepest 
in  mankind.  Its  loudest  strife  in  its  later  stage  was  over 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  but  its  most  vital  point  was 
after  all  the  practical  question  of  the  nature  of  man  and 
the  way  of  salvation.  Channing  declared  in  his  reply  to 
the  "  Panoplist  "  in  181 5  that  "we  consider  the  errours 
which  relate  to  Christ's  person  as  of  little  or  no  importance 
compared  with  the  errour  of  those  who  teach,  that  God 
brings  us  into  life  wholly  depraved  and  wholly  helpless." 
And  one  of  the  chief  of  living  exponents  of  Unitarianism, 
Rev.  Dr.  George  E.  Ellis,  thus  defined  its  essential  features 
nearly  forty  years  ago,  when  the  movement  still  preserved 
much  of  its  original  force  and  character :  "  Unitarianism 
stands  in  direct  and  positive  opposition  to  Orthodoxy  on 
three  great  doctrines,  which  Orthodoxy  teaches,  with  em- 
phasis, as  vital  to  its  system ;  namely,  that  the  nature  of 
human  beings  has  been  vitiated,  corrupted,  and  disabled, 
in  consequence  of  the  sin  of  Adam,  for  which  God  has 
in  judgment  doomed  our  race  to  suffering  and  woe ;  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  God,  and  therefore  an  object  of  religious 


346  THE   COXGREGATIOXALISrS.  [Chap.  ix. 

homage  and  prayer;  and  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  made 
effectual  to  human  salvation  by  reconciling  God  to  man, 
and  satisfying  the  claims  of  an  insulted  and  outraged  law. 
Unitarianism  denies  that  these  are  doctrines  of  the  Gospel, 
and  ofifers  very  different  doctrines,  sustained  by  Scripture, 
in  their  place."  In  making  this  denial  Unitarianism  broke 
with  the  consciousness  of  the  church  universal,  and  made 
a  separation  between  itself  and  evangelical  Congregation- 
alism not  only  inevitable  but  desirable. 

The  third  important  result  of  the  awakened  religious 
zeal  of  the  churches  was  the  introduction  into  New  Eng- 
land of  a  new  system  of  theological  education.  The  main 
design  for  which  Harvard  and  Yale  had  been  founded  was 
to  train  up  a  learned  ministry,  and  they  had  fulfilled  their 
purpose,  judged  by  the  low  educational  standards  of  the 
colonial  era.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  what  New  England 
would  have  become  had  it  not  been  for  their  noble  work. 
But  that  work  was  limited.  The  original  courses  of  in- 
struction at  these  colleges  presupposed  that  the  graduates 
would  chiefly  enter  the  ministry,  and  laid  emphasis  on 
theology,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  as  well  as  on  dialectics ;  but 
the  youth  of  the  students  and  the  elementary  character 
of  the  curriculum  gave  the  graduates  what  would  now  be 
considered  an  exceedingly  scanty  technical  training.  It 
was  the  custom,  however,  from  early  times  for  occasional 
students  to  return  to  college  after  graduation  for  a  few 
months,  or  perhaps  a  year  or  two,  of  reading  under  the 
direction  of  the  president  and  with  the  advantages  of  the 
library.  The  deficiencies  of  the  system  were  recognized 
in  the  eighteenth  century  and  led  to  the  foundation  of  the 
Hollis  Professorship  of  Divinity  at  Harvard  by  the  gift  of 
a  generous  Baptist  merchant  of  London,  Thomas  HolHs, 
in  1 72 1.  In  1746  the  beginnings  of  a  professorship  of 
divinity  were  made  at  Yale,  though  the  chair  was  not  filled 


THEOLOGICAL   EDUCATION.  347 

till  1755.  But  though  these  appointments  secured  more 
or  less  regular  lectures  on  doctrinal,  historical,  and  exegeti- 
cal  topics  for  the  undergraduates,  they  were  not  a  very 
efficient  or  very  popular  means  of  instruction.  It  became 
increasingly  the  custom,  especially  after  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  ministerial  candidates  to  take  a 
few  months  of  study  with  some  prominent  minister, — and 
though  many  of  the  New  England  clergy  thus  received 
students  into  their  households,  the  Edwardean  leaders 
most  extensively  engaged  in  this  labor  of  education.  Such 
intimate  connection  of  pupil  and  teacher  had  much  value 
in  initiating  the  candidate  into  methods  of  pastoral  labor, 
and  familiarizing  him  with  questions  of  practical  parish 
administration,  and  beyond  that  he  obtained  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  system  of  polemic  divinity  of  which 
his  teacher  was  the  exponent.  The  method  propagated 
schools  of  theology  most  efifectively.  But  it  is  almost 
needless  to  point  out  that  this  system  of  education  gave 
no  broad  view  of  church  history,  no  careful  study  of  lin- 
guistics or  exegesis,  and  no  extensive  acquaintance  with 
the  development  of  Christian  doctrine  as  a  whole.  A  busy 
New  England  pastor  of  the  last  century  had  neither  the 
time,  nor  the  books,  nor  the  technical  education  to  give 
instruction  along  such  lines. 

The  quickening  of  the  churches  under  the  new  revival 
spirit  led  to  a  feeling  among  many  that  a  better  system  of 
ministerial  training  should  be  introduced ;  but  this  feeling 
was  transformed  into  action  only  after  the  loss  of  Har- 
vard College  to  the  Liberals  by  the  election  of  Ware  to 
the  Hollis  Professorship  had  impressed  on  the  evangelical 
party  the  fact  that  such  public  facilities  as  then  existed 
for  ministerial  training  in  Massachusetts  had  passed  out  of 
conservative  hands.  It  has  already  been  seen  that  the 
evangelical  party  of  eastern  Massachusetts  included  at  least 


348  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

two  elements, — an  extreme  Edwardean  section,  the  Hop- 
kinsians,  or  "  Consistent  Calvinists  "  ;  and  an  Old  Calvinist 
section  of  varying  degrees  of  strenuousness.  The  Hop- 
kinsians  had  founded  the  "  Massachusetts  Missionary 
Society,"  and  its  "  Magazine  "  ;  the  hand  of  the  Old  Cal- 
vinists was  more  conspicuous  in  the  beginnings  of  the 
Massachusetts  General  Association  and  the  "  Panoplist." 
Both  parties  were  being  brought  into  union  by  their  com- 
mon opposition  to  Liberalism,  but  during  the  opening 
years  of  the  century  they  still  felt  considerable  jealousy  of 
each  other.  Now,  on  the  defection  of  Harvard,  repre- 
sentatives both  of  the  Old  Calvinists  and  Hopkinsians  in 
Essex  County,  Mass.,  began  in  1806  to  lay  their  plans,  each 
party  at  first  entirely  without  knowledge  of  the  others 
purposes,  for  the  planting  of  a  theological  seminary. 

The  Old  Calvinist  movement  had  its  center  at  Andover, 
where  Samuel  and  John  Phillips  had  founded  the  most 
famous  of  New  England  academies  in  1778.  The  Phillipses 
were  men  of  great  political  and  social  prominence,  of  ster- 
ling character,  and  of  Old  Calvinist  principles,  and  they 
had  given  to  their  academy  a  strongly  religious  bent, 
had  directed  that  the  main  doctrines  of  the  gospel  should 
be  taught  in  it,  and  had  even  contemplated  the  eventual 
establishment  in  the  academy  of  a  professorship  of  divinity 
similar  to  the  chairs  at  Harvard  and  Yale.  John  Phillips 
had  also  left  funds  in  charge  of  the  trustees  of  the  academy 
to  assist  students  "  in  the  study  of  divinity  under  the  direc- 
tion of  some  eminent  Calvinistic  minister," — funds  from 
which  students  were  aided  from  1797  to  1808  in  their 
training  under  one  of  the  Andover  pastors.  It  was  natural, 
therefore,  that  the  thoughts  of  the  Old  Calvinists  regarding 
a  theological  seminary  should  group  themselves  about  the 
academy  at  Andover;  especially  since  the  most  prominent 
of  the  projectors  of  the  plan  was  Prof.  Eliphalet  Pearson, 


ANDOVER   SEMINARY.  349 

who  had  been  the  first  principal  of  the  academy,  and  had 
continued  one  of  its  trustees  during  his  incumbency  of  the 
chair  of  Hebrew  at  Harvard  from  1785  to  1806.  Now,  in 
1806,  Pearson  resigned  his  professorship  and  returned  to 
Andover,  convinced  that  the  loss  of  Harvard  to  the  Lib- 
erals demanded  energetic  counter-action.  With  Pearson 
there  were  associated  in  forming  the  plan  for  the  seminary 
Rev.  Dr.  Morse,  of  Charlestown,  theologically  an  Edward- 
ean  of  the  type  of  Dwight,  but  broadly  sympathetic  with 
the  Old  Calvinists,  a  man  whose  activity  as  an  opponent 
of  rising  Unitarianism  has  already  been  noted,  and  Samuel 
Farrar,  an  Andover  lawyer.  Above  all  there  were  the 
"  Founders,"  who  eventually  contributed  the  necessary 
funds,  Samuel  Abbot,  Madam  Phoebe  Phillips,  the  widowed 
daughter-in-law  of  Samuel  Phillips,  the  benefactor  of  the 
academy,  and  her  son  John  Phillips,  Jr.,  of  Andover.  In 
July,  1806,  a  "Voluntary  Association,"  embracing  Pearson, 
Morse,  Farrar,  Abbot,  and  one  or  two  others,  met  at  the 
Phillips  residence  and  began  to  lay  definite  plans  for  realiz- 
ing their  purpose.  During  the  following  autumn  a  consti- 
tution for  the  proposed  "  Theological  Institution "  was 
prepared;  and  by  June,  1807,  the  scheme  had  so  far  crys- 
tallized that  an  act  was  obtained  from  the  Massachusetts 
legislature  authorizing  the  trustees  of  Phillips  Academy 
to  hold  funds  for  a  theological  seminary. 

While  the  Old  Calvinists  at  Andover  had  been  engaged 
in  the  earlier  portion  of  this  undertaking,  a  few  Hopkins- 
ians  about  Newburyport  had,  without  their  knowledge, 
also  been  laying  plans  for  a  seminary.  The  leader  in  this 
movement  was  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Spring,  a  pupil  of  Bellamy, 
Hopkins,  and  West,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  Emmons, 
who  had  been  filling  a  distinguished  pastorate  at  Newbury- 
port since  1777,  and  who  was  reckoned  with  reason  as, 
next  to  Emmons,  the  chief  Hopkinsian  in  New  England. 


350  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

With  Dr.  Spring  was  associated  his  much  younger  friend, 
Rev.  Leonard  Woods,  pastor  from  1 798  at  West  New- 
bury, a  man  who  was  classed  with  the  Hopkinsians  in  early 
life,  but  whose  catholic  and  judicious  spirit,  wide  friendships, 
and  sympathy  with  all  types  of  New  England  Calvinism 
admirably  fitted  him  to  conciliate  all  the  elements  of  the 
evangelical  party.  Under  the  influence  of  Spring  and 
Woods  three  laymen  of  wealth  and  character,  William 
Bartlett  and  Moses  Brown  of  Newburyport,  and  John 
Norris  of  Salem,  became  interested  by  the  beginning  of 
1807  in  the  foundation  of  a  seminary,  which  they  thought 
might  be  located  at  West  Newbury  and  have  Woods  for 
its  teacher  of  theology.  None  of  these  laymen  were  church- 
members  at  this  time,  and  Brown  alone  became  so,  but 
they  were  men  of  the  old  New  England  type,  much  in- 
terested in  religion,  and  solicitous  for  the  advancement 
of  the  churches.  These  three  laymen,  whose  contribu- 
tions did  much  to  make  Andover  Seminary  a  strong  institu- 
tion, were  to  be  known  in  its  history  as  the  "Associate 
Founders." 

The  intentions  of  the  two  parties  became  known  to  each 
other  through  the  intimacy  of  Woods  and  Morse  growing 
out  of  their  association  in  the  publication  of  the  "  Panoplist," 
and  to  both  of  these  friends  it  seemed  desirable  that  the 
Old  Calvinists  and  Hopkinsians  should  combine  their  forces 
in  one  strong  seminary.  Professor  Pearson  soon  warmly 
espoused  the  same  cause,  and  to  his  untiring  efforts  the 
ultimate  accomplishment  of  the  union  was  chiefly  due. 
But  Spring  was  suspicious  of  the  full  orthodoxy  of  the 
Old  Calvinists,  and  disinclined  to  compromise,  and  Emmons 
threw  his  great  influence  in  the  same  direction.  It  looked 
as  if  two  hostile  institutions  would  be  erected  almost  side 
by  side  ;  and  believing  that  union  was  unattainable,  the 
"  Founders "   signed    the    constitution   of   their  proposed 


ANDOVER   SEMINARY.  351 

seminary  on  August  31,  1807,  and  committed  it  to  the 
trustees  of  Pliillips  Academy,  who  accepted  the  trust  two 
days  later.  The  theological  standard  now  laid  down  by 
the  "  Founders  "  for  the  test  of  professorial  orthodoxy  was 
the  requirement  that  each  instructor  should  "  be  a  man  of 
sound  and  orthodox  principles  in  Divinity  according  to 
that  form  of  sound  words  or  system  of  evangelical  doctrines, 
drawn  from  the  Scriptures,  and  denominated  the  Westmin- 
ster Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism." 

But  through  the  persistence  of  Pearson  and  Woods  the 
plan  of  union  was  revived ;  and  at  last  mutual  conces- 
sions, in  which  the  chief  generosity  was  exhibited  by  the  Old 
Calvinists,  brought  about  the  desired  result.  To  the  Hop- 
kinsians  the  Westminster  Shorter  Catechism,  which  was  a 
satisfactory  creed  test  in  the  estimate  of  the  Old  Calvinists 
at  Andover,  did  not  seem  sufficient.  Moreover,  it  appeared 
unsafe  to  the  Hopkinsians  that  the  choice  of  professors 
should  be  committed  unreservedly  to  the  trustees  of  Phillips 
Academy.  But  at  last,  on  December  i,  1807,  a  union  was 
fully  determined,  and  in  May,  1808,  it  was  completed. 
During  the  early  summer  of  1807  Spring  and  Woods  had 
prepared  a  decidedly  Edwardean,  and  moderately  Hop- 
kinsian,  creed  for  the  use  of  the  possible  seminary  at  West 
Newbury.  This  creed  had  met  with  the  approval  of  the 
''Associate  Founders."  The  visitatorial  system,  of  which 
a  mild  example  existed  in  the  Board  of  Overseers  at  Har- 
vard, also  commended  itself  to  the  "Associate  Founders  " 
as  a  possible  means  of  controlling  the  action  of  the  trustees 
of  Phillips  Academy.  As  a  result,  the  "Associate  Foun- 
ders "  and  the  "  Founders "  agreed  that  each  professor 
should  assent  to  the  creed  which  the  Hopkinsians  had 
prepared,  as  a  symbol  in  which  those  doctrines  are  "  more 
particularly  expressed  "  which  are  "  summarily  expressed 
in  the  Westminster  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism."     Each 


352  THE    CONGKEGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

incumbent  of  a  chair  endowed  by  the  "Associate  Founders  " 
was  required,  in  addition,  to  be  a  "consistent  Calvinist." 
A  self-perpetuating  "  Board  of  Visitors  "  was  also  named, 
charged  to  see  that  the  provisions  of  the  trust  were  duly 
executed  by  trustees  and  professors,  from  whose  decision 
an  appeal  might  be  taken  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. This  complicated  system  of  government,  the 
only  basis  on  which  the  two  parties  would  unite  in  found- 
ing a  single  institution,  was  accepted  by  the  trustees  of 
Phillips  Academy  on  May  lo,  1808,  and  thus  became  the 
constitution  of  Andover  Seminary.  In  the  same  spirit  of 
conciliation,  Samuel  Abbot,  the  Old  Calvinist  "  Founder," 
who  had  retained  the  right  to  appoint  the  first  professor 
to  the  chair  of  Christian  Theology  which  he  had  endowed, 
chose  Leonard  Woods;  and  the  "Associate  Founders," 
Hopkinsians  though  they  were,  chose  Eliphalet  Pearson  to 
their  professorship  of  Natural  Theology.  And  so  the 
seminary  was  opened  for  students  on  September  28,  1808, 
with  an  attendance  of  thirty-six. 

The  inauguration  of  Andover  Seminary  was  an  event 
of  prime  importance  in  the  history  of  Congregationalism. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  of  theologic  education, 
it  was  the  most  formidable  barrier  erected  against  the 
spread  of  Unitarianism,  it  was  a  focus  of  missionary  zeal, 
and  its  successful  foundation  marked  the  union  between 
Old  Calvinism  and  Edwardeanism  in  eastern  Massachusetts, 
a  union  which  averted  a  very  serious  division  in  the  evan- 
gelical forces  at  a  time  when  all  their  strength  was  needed. 
The  seminary  had  from  the  first  the  confidence  of  the 
churches, — a  confidence  which  was  amply  justified  by  the 
character  and  ability  of  its  early  professors.  Under  the 
guidance  of  Leonard  Woods  in  the  chair  of  Theology  from 
1 808  to  1 846 ;  of  Moses  Stuart,  who  came  from  the  First 
Church  in  New  Haven,  Conn.,  to  succeed  Pearson  in  1810, 


ANDOVER   SEMINARY.  353 

and  whose  occupancy  of  the  professorship  of  Sacred  Lit- 
erature continued  till  1848;  and  of  Ebenezer  Porter,  who 
was  professor  of  Sacred  Rhetoric  from  181 2  to  1832,  not 
only  were  ministerial  candidates  trained  as  they  never  had 
been  in  America,  but  a  far-reaching  impulse  was  given  to 
theological  studies  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Systematic 
theology,  in  the  technical  sense  of  that  term,  was  esteemed 
a  relatively  more  important  branch  of  a  seminary  curricu- 
lum then  than  now,  and  the  careful,  clear,  and  thorough 
instruction  of  Professor  Woods  was  of  course  of  prime  im- 
portance. His  work  was  of  the  utmost  value,  standing  as 
he  did  in  his  theology  in  broad  sympathy  with  Old  Cal- 
vinists  and  Edwardeans,  in  completing  that  union  of  the 
evangelical  forces  which  his  election  to  the  Andover  pro- 
fessorship had  foreshadowed.  But  Professor  Stuart  did  a 
service  of  scarcely  less  value  by  his  enthusiastic  leadership 
in  Oriental  Literature,  a  field  then  almost  untrodden  by 
Americans,  and  by  his  introduction  of  the  study  of  con- 
temporary German  theology.  Nor  was  the  power  of  the 
seminary  lessened,  but  rather  increased,  when  Prof.  Ed- 
wards A.  Park,  who  had  occupied  the  chair  of  Sacred 
Rhetoric  since  1836,  took,  in  1847,  the  professorship  of 
Christian  Theology  that  had  been  held  by  Professor  Woods, 
and  remained  its  incumbent  till  1881.  Under  Professor 
Park  the  Edwardean  elements  in  the  creed  of  the  seminary 
were  made  more  prominent  than  they  had  been  under 
Professor  Woods,  and  his  conception  of  the  "  New  England 
Theology"  became  part  of  the  micntal  furnishing  of  more 
theological  students  than  any  other  Congregationalist  has 
ever  personally  taught. 

The  new  system  of  theologic  instruction  inaugurated  at 
Andover  was  immediately  popular.  The  entering  students 
in  that  institution  during  its  first  thirty  years  averaged 
sixty-two  annually.      Such    results    naturally   encouraged 


354  ^-^-^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

the  foundation  of  similar  seminaries  in  other  parts  of  the 
Congregational  field.  The  first  to  follow  Andover  was 
that  incorporated  by  the  Massachusetts  legislature  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1 8 14,  and  which  opened  in  October,  1816,  at  Hamp- 
den in  what  is  now  the  State  of  Maine,  but  was  then  a  dis- 
trict attached  to  Massachusetts.  In  18 19  its  location  was 
changed  to  Bangor,  Me.,  where  it  has  since  continued  and 
from  which  place  the  seminary  takes  its  name.  It  was 
originally  intended,  as  it  still  endeavors,  to  give  special 
facilities  to  those  who  have  not  had  the  advantages  of  a 
college  training,  though  this  aim  has  not  interfered  with 
the  maintenance  of  a  high  scholarly  reputation ;  but  it  has 
always  been  one  of  the  smaller  of  the  Congregational  semi- 
naries. Through  the  labors  of  Rev.  Dr.  Enoch  Pond, — a 
pupil  of  Emmons, — whose  connection  with  it  extended  from 
1832  to  1870,  Bangor  Seminary  attained  a  strong  position 
of  influence  in  the  region  of  which  it  is  the  center. 

These  advances  in  theologic  instruction  were  naturally 
regarded  with  interest  by  the  authorities  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, and  the  result  was  the  enlargement  of  the  old  pro- 
fessorship of  Divinity  into  a  Divinity  School, — of  Unitarian 
sympathies, — in  1 8 1 5 . 

A  similar  enlargement  soon  after  took  place  at  Yale 
College.  It  had  been  a  cherished  plan  of  President  Dwight 
that  a  separate  department  for  post-graduate  theologic 
teaching  should  be  established,  but  he  was  not  permitted 
to  see  the  desire  carried  into  execution.  In  1822,  how- 
ever, fifteen  students  of  the  academic  class  then  graduating 
petitioned  that  they  might  be  organized  into  a  class  in 
theology.  The  request  met  with  the  hearty  approval  of 
the  college  authorities,  a  fund  of  $20,000  was  raised,  and 
a  Di\inity  School  established  as  a  separate  collegiate  de- 
partment, having  as  its  professor  of  Sacred"  Literature  Rev. 
Eleazar  T.  Fitch,  who  had  held  the  chair  of  Divinity  in 


YALE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL.  355 

the  college  since  1 8 1 7 ;  and  as  its  professor  of  System- 
atic Theology,  Rev.  Nathaniel  W.  Taylor,  of  whose  life  and 
work  there  will  be  occasion  to  speak  at  some  length.  Both 
were  men  of  remarkable  mental  powers,  and  of  very  un- 
usual pulpit  abilities,  but  they  were  unlike  in  disposition, 
Professor  Fitch  being  timid  and  retiring,  while  Professor 
Taylor  was  well  fitted  by  nature  to  sustain  the  burden  of 
theologic  conflict.  The  Yale  Divinity  School  soon  became 
a  power  in  the  churches  through  the  influences  that  flowed 
forth  from  his  lecture- room. 

Nathaniel  W.  Taylor  was  born  at  New  Milford,  Conn., 
in  1786,  and  after  graduation  at  Yale  in  the  class  of  1807, 
he  studied  theology  with  President  Dwight,  whom  he 
served  as  an  amanuensis  and  by  whom  he  was  much  be- 
loved. In  181 1,  after  Moses  Stuart  had  accepted  a  pro- 
fessorship at  Andover,  he  became  Stuart's  successor  in  the 
pastorate  of  the  First  Church  of  New  Haven,  and  from 
that  ofUce  he  was  called  to  the  post  in  the  Divinity  School 
which  he  retained  till  his  death,  in  1858. 

As  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chapter,  the 
Edwardean  school  by  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury, had  divided  into  two  wings, — an  ultra-Edwardean  or 
Hopkinsian  section,  and  a  conciliatory  and  moderate  sec- 
tion of  which  Dwight  was  the  leader.  It  was  the  tendency 
of  this  latter  branch  that  Taylor  developed  in  his  own  sys- 
tem. The  elder  Edwards  had  asserted  human  responsi- 
bility with  positiveness,  and  this  doctrine  had  been  put  in 
the  fore-front  by  all  the  Edwardeans,  though  coupled  by 
them  all  with  the  most  strenuous  assertions  of  the  divine 
sovereignty.  It  was  to  this  problem  of  human  responsi- 
bility that  Taylor  turned  his  attention,  and  he  endeavored 
to  explain  it  in  what  he  deemed  a  more  positive  and  less 
objectionable  way  than  the  Edwardeans  had  thus  far  done. 
Man  is   not  a  creature,  Taylor  asserted,  whose   acts   are 


356  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

necessitated  in  accordance  with  an  unqualified  law  of  cause 
and  effect ;  yet  every  man's  choices  are  so  connected  with 
man's  antecedent  conditions  of  soul  and  his  situation  that, 
to  God's  perception,  it  is  certain  what  they  will  be,  though 
man  has  full  power  of  contrary  choice  at  all  times.  This 
"  certainty  with  power  to  the  contrary  "  makes  it  possible 
for  God  to  be  sovereign  and  man  dependent,  while  man  is 
also  perfectly  unforced  in  his  actions.  The  natural  ability 
to  choose  aright  is  a  real  power,  which  can  be  exercised 
by  the  sinner,  if  he  is  aroused  to  action  by  appeal  to  the 
proper  faculties  of  his  mind.  This  appeal  can  be  made  to 
the  sensibilities, — for  Taylor  divided  the  mental  powers 
into  the  intellect,  sensibilities,  and  will,  unlike  the  older 
Edwardeans  who  had  made  the  twofold  distinction  of  will 
and  understanding.  The  feeling  to  which  an  appeal  can 
be  made  is  self-love, — a  statement  startling  enough  to  a 
Hopkinsian, — but  Taylor  held  that  the  highest  form  of  this 
self-love,  the  pursuit  of  the  highest  happiness,  could  never 
be  inconsistent  with  that  choice  of  the  best  good  of  the 
universe  which  is  benevolence.  Yet  while  man  has  entire 
natural  power  to  change  his  character  so  as  to  love  God 
supremely,  it  is  certain  that  he  will  not  so  change  his  rul- 
ing purpose  unless  the  divine  Spirit  so  moves  upon  his  sen- 
sibilities as  to  induce  his  will  to  act,  yet  to  act  without 
coercion. 

Sin,  Taylor  maintained,  is  a  voluntary  disobedience  to 
known  law ;  it  consists  in  sinning,  it  flows  out  of  a  bias  to 
sin  which  will  occasion  the  active  transgression  wherein 
sin  consists  whenever  the  circumstances  are  such  as  to  be 
favorable  to  sinful  action,  but  this  bias  or  disposition  is  not 
in  itself  sinful.  Taylor  also  denied  that  sin  is  the  necessary 
means  of  the  greatest  good,  as  the  older  Edwardeans  had 
asserted.  He  held  that  a  system  in  which  the  free  action 
of  the  creature  is  permitted  may  be  one  from  which  God 


NATHANIEL    IV.    TAYLOR.  357 

is  unable  to  exclude  sin.  Such  a  system  of  freedom  may- 
be preferable  to  a  system  of  constraint  in  which  God  for- 
cibly prevents  sin  by  allowing  no  freedom  to  the  creature. 
It  may  be  the  best  system.  But  though  the  possibility  of 
sin  may  not  be  preventable  by  God  in  a  system  of  freedom, 
sin  may  be  prevented  consistently  with  the  purposes  of 
such  a  system  by  man's  resistance  to  temptation,  and  such 
resistance  would  be  preferable  to  any  yielding  to  sin,  not 
only  for  the  interests  of  the  individual  but  for  those  of  the 
universe  as  a  whole. 

The  opinions  of  Professor  Taylor  won  the  general  ap- 
proval of  his  colleagues,  and  they  soon  became  known  as 
the  "  New  Haven  theology."  The  first  public  statements 
that  attracted,  any  considerable  attention  to  these  theories, 
aside  from  rumors  of  class-room  teachings,  were  "Two 
Discourses  on  the  Nature  of  Sin ;  Delivered  before  the 
Students  of  Yale  College,  July  30,  1826,"  by  Professor 
Fitch.  In  these  sermons  Fitch  defended  the  proposition 
"  that  sin,  in  every  form  and  instance,  is  reducible  to  the 
act  of  a  moral  agent  in  which  he  violates  a  known  rule  of 
duty."  Two  years  later,  September  10,  1828,  Professor 
Taylor  delivered  the  annual  Concio  ad  Clentni  before  those 
of  the  ministers  of  Connecticut  who  had  assembled  at  the 
Yale  commencement,  and  set  forth  fully  his  theory  of  sin 
and  of  its  non-preventability  by  divine  power.  This  dis- 
course aroused  a  keen  discussion  at  once.  Many  of  the 
more  conservative  Edwardeans  of  Connecticut  had  looked 
upon  Professor  Taylor  with  suspicion  ever  since  his  en- 
trance on  the  duties  of  his  chair;  and  it  now  seemed  to 
them  that  he  had  made  a  serious  departure  from  New 
England  Calvinism  in  an  Arminian  direction  and  had 
denied  the  full  sovereignty  of  God,  by  his  theories  regard- 
ing the  nature  and  preventability  of  sin,  and  especially 
regarding  self-love  as  a  motive  in  conversion.      Publica- 


358  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

tions  in  criticism  and  in  defense  of  the  New  Haven  views 
followed  in  rapid  succession,  and  with  much  warmth  of 
feeling. 

Taylor's  sermon  was  answered  speedily  by  Rev.  Joseph 
Harvey  of  Westchester  parish,  in  Colchester,  Conn.,  and 
by  Professor  Woods  of  Andover  Seminary ;  but  a  more 
energetic  antagonist  than  either  speedily  came  into  the 
field.  During  1829  Taylor  reviewed,  in  a  New  Haven 
religious  magazine,  the  "  Quarterly  Christian  Spectator," 
an  essay  published  in  1827  by  Rev.  Dr.  Gardiner  Spring, 
of  New  York,  on  the  "  Means  of  Regeneration,"  and  in 
his  reviews  the  New  Haven  di\ine  once  more  made  evi- 
dent his  interpretation  of  religious  truth.  That  summer 
Rev.  Dr.  Bennet  Tyler,  then  pastor  of  the  Second  Church 
of  Portland,  Me.,  "  visited  Connecticut  and  collected  all 
the  pamphlets  which  had  been  published  "  relative  to  the 
New  Haven  theology.  The  result  of  a  "  careful  examina- 
tion of  this  literature,"  he  records,  "  was  a  full  conviction 
that  the  New  Haven  brethren  had  adopted  opinions  which 
were  erroneous  and  of  dangerous  tendency."  And  as  a 
consequence  of  this  conclusion  he  attacked  Taylor's  views 
with  vigor  in  December,  1829,  in  his  "Strictures  on  the 
Review  of  Dr.  Spring's  Dissertation."  So  thoroughly  did 
T)der  become,  from  now  onward,  the  champion  on  the 
conservative  Edwardean  side,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
party  included  a  number  of  other  men  of  vigor,  that  the 
discussion  was  popularly  known  as  the  "  Taylor  and  Tyler 
Controversy." 

Like  Professor  Taylor,  Bennet  Tyler  was  a  native  of 
Connecticut,  having  been  born  in  Middlebury,  in  1783; 
and  like  Taylor  he  was  a  graduate  of  Yale,  his  class  being 
that  of  1804.  After  a  pastorate  at  South  Britain  in  his 
native  State,  he  became  president  of  Dartmouth  College  in 
1822  ;  and  in  1828  entered  on  his  charge  at  Portland,  Me. 


BEN  NET   TYLER.  359 

He  was  a  vigorous  writer,  a  natural  leader,  a  man  of  sin- 
cere piety,  of  great  positiveness  of  conviction,  and  a  full 
sympathizer  with  the  older  Edwardeanism. 

The  next  two  or  three  years  were  filled  with  discussion, 
negotiation,  and  publication,  and  resulted  in  the  formation 
of  two  clearly  defined  parties  in  Connecticut.  Probably 
this  conclusion  was  aided  by  the  contemporary  discussions 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church  which  resulted  in  the  division 
of  that  body  into  the  "  Old  School  "  and  "  New  School " 
factions  in  1837.  Certainly  the  Connecticut  discussions 
were  a  factor  in  that  separation.  The  first  step  in  organized 
opposition  to  the  New  Haven  views  appears  to  have  been 
taken  on  October  12,  1831,  when  a  few  ministers  of  Con- 
necticut met  at  Norwich  and  organized  a  "  Doctrinal  Tract 
Society."  The  movement  grew,  and  late  in  1832,  at  the 
suggestion  of  Rev.  Dr.  Nathan  Perkins  of  West  Hartford, 
and  of  Rev.  Joseph  Harvey,  an  invitation  was  sent  out  to 
all  the  associations  of  the  State  and  to  a  few  of  those  of 
western  Massachusetts  asking  them  to  send  two  pastors 
each  to  a  meeting  to  be  held  at  Hartford,  January  8,  1833, 
"  to  consult  on  measures  which  it  may  be  proper  and  nec- 
essary to  adopt,  in  the  present  posture  of  our  theological 
concerns."  The  response  was  by  no  means  general;  only 
about  twenty  ministers  appeared  at  the  meeting.  But 
at  the  invitation  of  a  committee  chosen  at  this  Hartford 
gathering  a  convention  of  thirty-six  Connecticut  ministers 
of  conservative  sympathies  assembled  on  September  10, 
1833,  in  a  little  schoolhouse  in  what  is  now  South  Wind- 
sor, but  was  then  East  Windsor,  Conn.  Among  those 
present  in  this  meeting  were  Rev.  Drs.  Samuel  Spring  of 
Hartford,  Asahel  Nettleton  the  evangeHst,  Nathaniel  Hewit 
of  Bridgeport,  Daniel  Dow  of  Thompson,  George  A.  Cal- 
houn of  North  Coventry,  Joseph  Harvey,  and  Rev.  Messrs. 
Timothy  P.  Gillett  of  Branford,  Frederick  Marsh  of  Win- 


360  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

Chester,  and  Cyrus  Yale  of  New  Hartford.  The  result  of 
two  days  of  deliberation  was  the  formation  of  a  voluntary 
association  of  ministers,  the  "  Connecticut  Pastoral  Union," 
with  a  conservatively  Edwardean  but  not  extreme  creed, 
based  on  a  draught  which  had  already  been  submitted  to 
the  meeting  at  Hartford  in  the  previous  January  and  in 
which  the  New  Haven  peculiarities  were  distinctly  opposed. 
This  "  Pastoral  Union,"  into  which  the  meeting  at  East 
Windsor  had  resolved  itself,  now  took  steps  toward  found- 
ing a  new  theological  seminary,  having  its  creed  as  the 
doctrinal  test.  Rev.  Dr.  Tyler  was  soon  chosen  professor 
of  Christian  Theology,  and  a  fund  of  $20,000  was  raised 
by  January,  1834.  The  contributions  of  one  of  the  larger 
donors  determined  the  location  of  the  new  seminary  at 
East  Windsor  Hill,  and  this  determination  was  strengthened 
by  the  desire  that  the  students  should  gain  physical  exer- 
cise, then  just  beginning  to  be  recognized  as  of  importance 
in  educational  institutions,  by  work  upon  a  farm.  The 
new  seminary,  known  as  the  "  Theological  Institute  of 
Connecticut,"  was  formally  opened  on  May  13,  1834,  with 
Dr.  Tyler,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Jonathan  Cogswell  of  New  Brit- 
ain, as  its  professors.  In  the  following  October,  Rev. 
William  Thompson,  a  native  of  Goshen,  Conn.,  and  just 
entering  on  a  pastorate  at  what  is  now  Brockton,  Mass., 
became  professor  of  Biblical  Literature.  His  connection 
with  the  seminary  lasted  till  his  death,  in  1889,  and  to  his 
wisdom,  patience,  self-denial,  and  teaching  skill,  whatever 
success  the  institution  has  had  is  chiefly  due.  Professor 
Tyler's  connection  continued  till  1857,  and  in  1858,  the 
same  year  that  witnessed  the  demise  of  Professor  Taylor, 
he  died.  Public  interest  in  the  particular  questions  in  de- 
bate between  the  two  institutions  had  been  declining,  and 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  survived  the  departure  of  the 
two  champions.      Fruitless  efforts  were  made  just  before 


Hartford  seminary.  361 

the  deaths  of  Taylor  and  Tyler  and  again  in  1864  to  unite 
the  two  Connecticut  seminaries.  The  isolated  location  at 
East  Windsor  Hill  proved  unfavorable  to  the  younger  in- 
stitution, and  it  therefore  removed  in  1865  to  Hartford, 
where  after  a  few  years  of  domicile  in  its  new  location  and 
a  very  marked  growth  in  strength,  its  name  was  altered  to 
that  of  "  Hartford  Theological  Seminary."  It  has  always 
borne  the  somewhat  conservative  impress  given  to  it  by  its 
founders. 

Contemporary  with  the  establishment  of  a  second  theo- 
logical seminary  in  Connecticut,  a  very  remarkable  move- 
ment led  to  the  undertaking  of  a  great  educational  and 
missionary  enterprise  in  Ohio,  out  of  which,  through  a 
chain  of  circumstances  of  much  interest,  a  theological  sem- 
inary speedily  grew.  Oberlin  College  had  its  beginnings 
in  the  thought  of  Rev.  John  J.  Shipherd,  the  young  pastor 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Elyria,  0.,  a  native  of  Gran- 
ville, N.  Y.,  who  had  had  his  theological  training  under 
the  hymn- writer.  Rev.  Dr.  Josiah  Hopkins,  long  a  Vermont 
minister,  and  settled  at  Auburn,  N.  Y.,  in  1830.  Shipherd 
had  as  his  associate  in  his  plans  Rev.  Philo  P.  Stewart,  a 
native  of  Sherman,  Conn.,  who  had  been  a  missionary  of 
the  American  Board  among  the  Choctaw  Indians,  but  was 
now  living  in  Shipherd's  household.  In  1832  they  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  Christian  college,  open  to  men  and 
women  alike,  furnishing  an  education  to  all  who  wished  at 
a  moderateness  of  cost  which  should  put  it  within  the  reach 
of  the  most  needy,  and  ultimately  offering  preparatory, 
normal,  collegiate,  and  theologic  instruction.  This  institu- 
tion they  proposed  to  surround  with  a  self-denying  Chris- 
tian community,  pledged  to  common  effort  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom.  This  far-reaching 
undertaking  was  begun  almost  as  soon  as  it  had  been 
determined  upon.     A  large  tract  of  uncleared  forest  land 


362  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

in  the  Western  Reserve  was  obtained,  and  in  April,  1833, 
tlie  Oberlin  colony, — a  band  of  people  all  of  whom  could 
trace  back  their  family  origin  to  New  England, — settled 
upon  it  and  erected  a  college  building.  Instruction  was 
begun  that  year,  and  in  1834  the  school  was  regularly 
organized.  In  September,  1834,  the  Oberlin  church,  an 
institution  vitally  connected  with  the  college,  was  formed. 
This  church  was  originally  on  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  ;  but 
in  1836  it  became  wholly  and  actively  Congregational,  and 
since  that  time  Oberlin  has  been  a  thoroughly  Congrega- 
tional community  and  college.  No  institution  has  been 
more  useful  to  our  churches  than  this  educational  center; 
its  life  has  been  one  of  intense  spiritual  activity,  of  deep 
consecration,  of  high,  self-denying  achievement,  and  Con- 
gregationalism to-day  has  few  agencies  for  which  it  has 
more  profound  reason  to  be  thankful  than  for  Oberlin 
College. 

It  was  the  intention  of  the  projectors  of  Oberlin  that 
the  foundation  should  ultimately  include  a  theological  de- 
partment,— the  actual  establishment  of  that  seminary  came 
about  unexpectedly,  however,  in  1835.  Lane  Seminary, 
a  Presbyterian  institution  of  "  New  School  "  sympathies, 
had  been  founded  at  Cincinnati,  O.,  in  1829,  and  had 
opened  its  doors  for  theological  students  in  1832,  with  two 
of  its  three  professors  men  of  New  England  birth  who  had 
been  prominent  in  Congregational  circles.  Rev.  Drs.  Ly- 
man Beecher  and  Calvin  E.  Stowe.  Soon  after  its  open- 
ing the  Abolition  movement  began  to  make  a  stir  in  the 
land,  and  the  students  of  Lane  Seminary,  being  located 
just  on  the  border  of  slavery,  entered  with  eagerness  into 
the  discussion  and  largely  adopted  antislavery  sentiments. 
Alarmed  lest  the  agitation  should  injure  the  seminary,  its 
trustees  in  1834,  without  consulting  the  faculty  as  a  whole, 
adopted  a  rule  forbidding  the  students  to  discuss  slavery 


OBERLIN  SEMINARY.  363 

in  public  or  in  private.  Four  fifths  of  the  students  speedily 
left  the  institution  in  a  body,  and  after  some  negotiation 
proposed  to  go  to  Oberlin  provided  Rev.  Charles  G.  Fin- 
ney could  be  secured  as  a  theological  instructor.  At  the 
same  time  Shipherd  urged  the  Oberlin  trustees  to  throw 
open  their  doors  to  colored  students,— a  step  of  then  un- 
heard-of boldness.  The  proposition  was  keenly  opposed, 
but  was  finally  carried  by  the  casting  vote  of  the  presid- 
ing officer  of  the  board,  and  it  placed  Oberlin  permanently 
on  the  basis  of  the  Christian  equality  of  all  men,  white 
or  black.  At  the  same  meeting  the  trustees  elected  Fin- 
ney professor  of  Theology;  and  in  the  spring  of  1835, 
a  few  weeks  after  this  action  of  the  trustees,  the  Lane 
students  came,  and  Oberlin  Theological  Seminary  was 
established. 

Rev.  Charles  G.  Finney,  whose  coming  as  professor  of 
theology  had  been  so  earnestly  desired  in  1835,  and  whose 
connection  with  the  college  at  Oberlin  as  teacher  and  as 
president  was  to  continue  till  his  death  in  1875,  was  a  man 
of  remarkable  gifts  and  marked  peculiarities.  He  was  born 
in  Warren,  Conn.,  in  1792,  but  his  early  training  was  in 
western  New  York.  Here  he  grew  up  with  meager  op- 
portunities for  study,  and  intending  to  devote  himself  to 
the  law,  till  he  experienced  a  profound  religious  awakening 
in  1 82 1.  Licensed  to  preach  in  1824,  he  became  one  of 
the  most  laborious  of  American  evangelists,  extending  his 
efforts  all  through  the  New  England  and  Middle  States, 
and  being  characterized  by  a  type  of  preaching  and  a 
method  of  revivalistic  work  which,  though  extremely 
effective,  seemed  to  many  to  be  extravagant,  and  led  to 
some  opposition  even  from  evangelists  like  Lyman  Beecher 
and  Asahel  Nettleton.  Many  incidents  are  yet  related  of 
his  direct  public  prayers  for  individuals  by  name,  and  vari- 
ous other  eccentricities  of  manner  by  which  he  was  always 


364  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.    '  [Chap,  ix. 

marked.  Finney  settled  in  New  York  in  1832,  and  in 
1834  became  pastor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Congre- 
gational Church  of  that  city,  from  which  post  he  went  to 
Oberlin. 

In  his  theology  Finney  belonged  in  a  general  way  to 
the  Edwardean  school,  but  he  gave  to  his  system  some 
features  that  were  certainly  far  removed  from  the  older 
"  New  England  Divinity."  He  laid  even  more  stress  on 
the  natural  ability  of  the  sinner  to  repent  than  the  later 
Edwardeans  had  done.  To  his  thinking,  as  to  that  of 
some  of  the  New  England  Edwardeans,  hoJiness  and  sin 
attach  only  to  voluntary  actions  ;  but  he  drew  a'conclusion 
that  was  his  own,  holding  that  since  these  qualities  are 
diametrically  opposed  they  cannot  coexist  in  man.  Holi- 
ness is  entire  obedience  to  God ;  all  sin  is  as  positive  and 
complete  disobedience.  When  a  Christian  sins,  his  obedi- 
ence is  wholly  interrupted  for  the  time.  But  it  is  possible, 
by  the  aid  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  to  live  in  continuous  obe- 
dience even  in  this  world,  and  every  Christian  should  labor 
and  should  expect  to  make  this  abiding  obedience  the 
permanent  condition  of  his  life  on  earth.  These  doctrines 
seemed  to  many  of  Finney's  contemporaries  to  savor  of 
Arminianism,  as  they  certainly  did  of  Perfectionism, — a 
feeling  that  was  not  lessened  when  in  1836,  partly  through 
its  desire  to  welcome  Christians  of  all  shades  to  its  fellow- 
ship, the  Oberlin  church,  which  embraced  the  leaders  of 
the  college  and  community,  dropped  the  doctrines  of  elec- 
tion and  perseverance  from  its  creed.  The  more  strongly 
Calvinistic  Congregational  churches  of  the  West,  and  New 
England  generally,  looked  upon  the  orthodoxy  of  Oberlin 
with  doubt,  and  this  doubt  strengthened  the  suspicions 
regarding  western  Congregationalism,  which  did  so  much 
to  maintain  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  in  operation  in  its  later 
years,  and  which  were  not  wholly  removed  till  after  the 


FINNEY  AND  BUSHNELL.  365' 

Albany  Convention  of  1852.  But  the  spiritual  power  and 
consecrated  purpose  of  Oberlin  in  time  won  it  great  re- 
spect, though  Finney's  interpretation  of  Christian  truth 
has  never  found  large  acceptance  in  the  Congregational 
churches. 

This  brief  sketch  of  the  religious  forces  which  molded 
Congregationalism  in  the  period  of  awaking  religious  life 
and  rapid  transition  in  methods  that  forms  the  theme  of 
this  chapter  would  not  be  complete  without  the  mention 
of  a  theologian  who  represented  in  large  measure  a  break- 
ing away  from  the  Edwardean  type  of  thought  which  had 
gradually  come  to  dominate  Congregationalism, — Horace 
Bushnell.  Bushnell  was  a  native  of  Litchfield,  Conn., 
where  he  was  born  in  1802,  and  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  the 
class  of  1827.  For  the  next  four  years  he  was  a  teacher, 
a  journalist,  and  then  a  student  of  law  and  a  tutor  at  his 
alma  mater.  A  religious  experience  in  183 1  turned  his 
thoughts  to  the  ministry,  and  he  entered  Yale  Divinity 
School,  where  Professor  Taylor  was  then  in  the  height  of 
his  fame,  graduating  in  1833.  The  same  year  he  began 
his  only  pastorate,  that  of  the  North  (now  Park)  Congrega- 
tional Church  at  Hartford,  in  whose  service  he  remained 
till  ill-health  compelled  his  resignation  in  1859.  He  died 
February  17,  1876.  Never  a  man  of  vigorous  constitution, 
he  was  an  untiring  worker,  and  a  most  public-spirited  citi- 
zen, leaving  the  impress  of  his  marked  personality  in  many 
ways  on  the  community  where  he  lived. 

Bushnell's  first  important  publication  was  his  "  Dis- 
courses on  Christian  Nurture,"  issued  in  1847.  ^^  this 
book  he  broke  with  the  conception  emphasized  by  the 
whole  Edwardean  school,  which  had  looked  upon  entrance 
into  the  kingdom  of  God  as  by  a  "  conversion,"  usually  in- 
volving a  conscious  submission  to  God.  This  experience, 
while  not  denied  to  children,  is  characteristic  of  adult  years  ; 


366  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

and  the  tendency  of  the  Edwardean  reaction  from  the 
abuses  of  the  Half-Way  Covenant  was  to  cause  those  who 
were  the  baptized  children  of  the  church  to  be  regarded 
as  little  more  in  the  way  of  salvation,  as  long  as  they  were 
unconverted,  than  any  other  children.  In  this  book  Bush- 
nell  returned  in  large  measure  to  the  pre-Edwardean  New 
England  view;  though  he  presented  it  in  a  very  modern 
way.  Membership  in  a  Christian  family  and  baptism  ought, 
he  held,  to  render  the  child  presumptively  one  of  the  house- 
hold of  faith.  The  "  true  idea  of  Christian  education," 
Bushnell  declared,  is  "  that  the  child  is  to  grow  up  a  Chris- 
tian, and  never  know  himself  as  being  otherwise."  For 
such  a  child  a  "  great  change  of  experience  "  is  not  neces- 
sary. "  He  ought  not  to  be  the  subject  of  any  such  change ; 
and  if  he  is  properly  trained,  will  not  be." 

This  presentation  of  the  possibilities  of  Christian  nurture, 
as  Bushnell  conceived  them,  aroused  opposition  from  many 
earnest  Edwardeans  to  whom  his  doctrines  seemed  to  im- 
ply that  a  man  became  a  Christian  by  education  rather 
than  by  the  direct  change  of  his  heart  by  a  sovereign  act 
of  God.  Professor  Tyler  of  the  Theological  Institute  of 
Connecticut  was  one  of  these.  In  a  "  Letter  to  Dr.  Bush- 
nell," printed  in  1847,  Tyler  maintained:  "That  the  child 
should  grow  up  a  Christian,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should 
become  a  Christian.  .  .  .  Those  to  whom  the  privilege  is 
given  to  become  the  sons  of  God  .  .  .  are  not  Christians 
by  natural  descent.  Grace  is  not  hereditary.  .  .  .  They 
are  not  converted  by  any  efforts  of  their  own,  made  in  an 
unrenewed  state.  .  .  .  They  are  not  converted  by  moral 
suasion,  or  by  any  efforts  of  man.  They  are  not  made 
Christians  by  education.  ...  It  is  God's  prerogative  to 
change  the  heart." 

Two  years  later,  in  1 849,  Bushnell  published  a  yet  more 
debate-stirring  series  of  discourses, — his  "  God  in  Christ." 


BUSHNELL'S    VIEWS.  367 

In  this  work  he  presented  a  semi-SabelHan  theory  of  the 
divine  existence,  and  a  view  of  the  atonement  which  placed 
its  entire  emphasis  on  its  man-ward  aspects.  To  Bushnell's 
thinking,  the  Trinity  is  a  truth  of  Christian  experience  :  "  I 
do  not  undertake  to  fathom  the  interior  being  of  God,  and 
tell  how  it  is  composed.  That  is  a  matter  too  high  for  me, 
and,  I  think,  for  us  all.  I  only  insist  that,  assuming  the 
strictest  unity  and  even  simplicity  of  God's  nature,  he 
could  not  be  efficiently  or  sufficiently  revealed  to  us,  with- 
out evolving  a  trinity  of  persons,  such  as  we  meet  in  the 
Scriptures."  But  "  whatever  may  be  true  of  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  it  certainly  is  not  true  that  they  are 
three  distinct  consciousnesses,  wills,  and  understandings. 
Or,  speaking  in  a  way  more  positive,  they  are  instrument- 
ally  three, — three  simply  as  related  to  our  finite  apprehen- 
sion, and  the  communication  of  God's  incommunicable 
nature." 

In  his  judgment,  likewise,  the  atonement  is  "  the  Life  of 
God  .  .  .  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ,  to  quicken  the  world 
in  love  and  truth,  and  reunite  it  to  himself."  "  My  doc- 
trine is  summarily  this ;  that,  excluding  all  thoughts  of 
a  penal  quality  in  the  life  and  death  of  Christ,  or  of  any 
divine  abhorrence  to  sin,  exhibited  by  sufferings  laid  upon 
his  person ;  also,  dismissing,  as  an  assumption  too  high  for 
us,  the  opinion  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  designed  for 
some  governmental  effect  on  the  moral  empire  of  God  in 
other  worlds, — excluding  points  like  these,  and  regarding 
everything  done  by  him  as  done  for  expression  before  us, 
and  thus  for  effect  in  us,  he  does  produce  an  impression  in 
our  minds  of  the  essential  sanctity  of  God's  law  and  char- 
acter, which  it  was  needful  to  produce,  and  without  which 
any  proclamation  of  pardon  would  be  dangerous,  any  at- 
tempt to  subdue  and  reconcile  us  to  God,  ineffectual." 

These  opinions  set  forth  in  Bushnell's  "  God  in  Christ " 


368  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  ix. 

were  at  once  attacked  in  the  New  York  "  Evangelist,"  the 
"  Christian  Observatory  "  of  Boston,  the  "  Princeton  Re- 
view," the  "  Rehgious  Herald  "  of  Hartford,  and  elsewhere. 
A  few  months  after  the  publication  of  the  book,  the  Hart- 
ford Central  Association,  of  which  Bushnell  was  a  mem- 
ber, took  up  the  case,  but  decided  eventually  against 
action.  Against  this  course,  the  Association  of  Fairfield 
West  remonstrated  in  January,  1850;  and  in  1850  and 
1852  the  case  was  laid  before  the  General  Association  of 
Connecticut,  but  that  body  did  not  interfere.  Bushnell's 
church  as  a  whole  decidedly  sympathized  with  its  pastor, 
and  since  the  case  could  still  be  brought  before  the  local 
consociation  for  trial  if  three  members  of  his  church  should 
make  complaint,  the  church,  on  June  27,  1852,  withdrew 
from  the  Hartford  North  Consociation, — a  step  which  the 
general  break- down  of  the  consociational  system  that  was 
to  result  in  the  suspension  of  the  Hartford  Consociation 
itself  in  1871  rendered  not  very  difficult. 

These  theories,  and  Bushnell's  later  works  which  in  some 
measure  enforced  and  developed  them,  notably  his  "  Na- 
ture and  the  Supernatural  "  of  1858,  "  The  Vicarious  Sac- 
rifice "  of  1866,  and  "  Forgiveness  and  Law  "  of  1874,  not 
only  created  discussion,  but  two  of  the  three  views  which 
have  been  described  have  secured  an  abiding  following. 
The  New  England  mind  has  in  it  little  of  the  old  Greek 
desire  to  speculate  for  speculation's  sake ;  and  Bushnell's 
thoughts  regarding  the  Trinity,  though  pitched  upon  most 
prominently  by  his  opponents,  have  had  scant  currency 
and  have  excited  little  real  interest.  But  his  "  moral 
theory  "  of  the  atonement  has  gained  considerable  follow- 
ing, though  its  adherents  are  still  a  decided  minority  among 
Congregational  ministers ;  and  his  conception  of  the  im- 
portance of  Christian  nurture  and  of  the  consequences 
which  may  be  expected  from  it  has  awakened  even  wider 


BUSHNELUS    VIEWS.  369 

response,  though  it,  too,  is  by  no  means  unquestioned. 
Bushnell  well  represents  a  type  of  departure  from  some  of 
the  older  New  England  ways  of  thinking,  especially  from 
tlie  views  of  the  Edwardean  school  which  dominated  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  has  become  in- 
creasingly common  during  the  last  thirty  years. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    DENOMINATIONAL    AWAKENING — MODERN   CON- 
GREGATIONALISM. 

The  general  indifference  regarding  the  extension  of 
Congregational  polity  which  had  marked  the  epoch  of 
doctrinal  discussion  introduced  by  the  Great  Awakening 
continued  well  toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury. It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  three  oldest 
national  missionary  societies  of  Congregationalism  were 
interdenominational  organizations  in  their  earlier  years. 
Under  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  a  multitude  of  churches  grew 
up  in  the  older  West  neither  purely  Presbyterian  nor 
wholly  Congregational.  Theological  seminaries  in  their 
instruction  laid  little  or  no  emphasis  on  Congregational 
polity.  Ministers  passing  from  regions  where  Congrega- 
tionalism was  prevalent  to  sections  permeated  by  Presby- 
terianism  changed  their  church  affiliations  as  readily  as 
they  changed  their  residences,  and  Presbyterians  coming 
to  New  England  were  as  cordially  received.  The  de- 
scendants of  those  who  had  crossed  the  ocean  to  establish 
what  they  believed  to  be  the  only  polity  warranted  by  the 
Word  of  God  now  seemed  to  hold  that  polity  was  a  matter 
of  geography  rather  than  of  principle, — that  a  church  west- 
ward of  the  Hudson  ought  to  be  Presbyterian  as  surely  as 
one  east  of  that  dividing  stream  should  be  Congregational. 

But  at  last,  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  decade 
of  the  present  centur}',  Congregationalism  began  to  show 
signs  of  awaking  to  a  sense  of  its  own  mission  and  its  right 

370 


FORMATION  OF  ASSOCIATIONS.  37  I 

to  be.  These  evidences  were  first  apparent  in  the  regions 
where  CongregationaHsm  was  brought  into  active  compari- 
son with  other  polities,  as  in  the  older  and  more  recent 
West.  State  Associations  began  to  arise  in  territories 
where  missionary  labors  had  been  carried  on  under  the 
"  Plan  of  Union  "  ;  and  afforded  distinct  evidence  of  the 
dawning  self-recognition  of  the  Congregational  churches. 
The  first  of  these  then  esteemed  Western  bodies  to  come 
into  being  was  that  of  New  York,  formed  at  Clinton  on 
May  21,  1834.  The  establishment  of  Oberlin  College  in 
1832-34  was  a  step  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  his- 
tory of  Congregationalism  in  Ohio ;  and  was  followed  on 
October  29,  1834,  by  the  creation  of  the  "Independent 
Congregational  Union  of  the  Western  Reserve."  In  Sep- 
tember, 1836,  the  churches  and  ministers  of  the  Reserve 
were  united  into  a  General  Association  at  Oberlin,  de- 
signed "  to  afford  such  of  them  as  choose,  the  free  exercise 
of  their  Congregational  rights."  The  Reserve  was  only  a 
section  of  a  State,  but  its  character  was  so  individual  that 
the  formation  of  its  Association  was  an  event  of  great  im- 
portance. It  showed  that  the  Congregational  elements 
were  beginning  to  crystallize  out  of  the  general  solution 
into  which  they  had  been  cast  by  the  "  Plan  of  Union." 
But  consolidation  came  slowly  in  Ohio,  largely  by  reason 
of  doctrinal  divergences  between  the  Oberlin  theology  and 
the  older  Calvinism ;  and  a  General  Association  for  the 
whole  State  was  not  brought  into  being  till  June  24,  1852, 
when  far-off  Oregon  had  already  had  a  State  Association 
for  four  years.  The  General  Association  of  Iowa  was  or- 
ganized at  Denmark  on  November  6,  1840;  and  that  of 
Michigan  at  Jackson  on  October  11,  1842.  Next  came 
the  State  body  of  Illinois  on  June  21,  1844;  that  of  Kansas 
in  1855,  California  in  1857,  Indiana  in  1858,  and  those  of 
the  newer  Western  States  in  rapid  succession. 


372  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

A  glance  at  the  sequence  of  these  events  reveals  at  once 
the  fact  that  by  1840  the  home-missionary  pioneers  of  the 
Congregational  body  upon  the  frontier  were  making  more 
strenuous  efforts  to  advance  Congregational  polity  than 
they  had  thus  far  done.  Hence  it  was  that  Iowa  had  a 
General  Association  four  years  before  the  much  older  State 
of  Illinois,  and  two  years  before  Michigan.  This  increased 
emphasis  on  church  government  was  not  due  to  any  pre- 
scriptions of  the  missionary  societies  or  of  the  contributors 
to  the  missionary  treasuries.  It  was  owing  to  the  awaken- 
ing denominational  consciousness  of  the  Congregational 
body  itself, — an  awakening  which  first  became  evident  in 
the  West,  and  which  at  last  aroused  New  England  after  it 
had  fully  demonstrated  that  Congregationalism  was  as  well 
able  to  bring  forth  its  characteristic  fruits  in  the  forming 
communities  of  the  new  States  as  it  had  been  in  the  New 
England  of  two  hundred  years  before. 

This  development  of  denominational  spirit  is  well  illus- 
trated in  the  introduction  of  Congregationalism  into  the 
adjacent  States  of  Illinois  and  low^a.  Illinois  belonged  to 
the  "  Old  Northwest "  which  was  organized  into  a  free 
territory  by  the  celebrated  Ordinance  of  1787.  Iowa  was 
a  portion  of  the  Louisiana  purchase  of  1803.  The  first 
connection  of  Illinois  with  Congregational  missionary  en- 
terprise was  in  1812,  when  Samuel  J.  Mills,  the  friend  of 
foreign  missions,  made  report  regarding  the  region  to  the 
Connecticut  Missionary  Society.  He  found  the  Methodists 
and  Baptists  already  at  work  on  the  field.  But  though 
Congregational  missionary  societies  were  actively  at  work 
in  Illinois  by  18 14,  their  labors  were  at  first  wholly  along 
the  lines  of  the  "  Plan  of  Union."  It  was  not  till  1831 
that  there  was  a  distinctly  Congregational  church  in  the 
State, — that  of  Princeton,  which  had  been  organized  at 
Northampton,  Mass.,  and  had  emigrated  in  a  bod}-.      Till 


CHURCHES  IN  ILLINOIS  AND   IOWA.  373 

the  arrival  of  that  church  in  its  IlHnois  home,  the  churches 
gathered  by  New  England  missionaries,  and  often  com- 
posed of  New  England  material,  had  become  Presbyte- 
rian in  their  affiliations.  After  1833,  when  four  Congrega- 
tional churches  were  formed,  the  polity  slowly  spread  ;  and 
by  1843  the  Congregational  churches  of  Illinois  numbered 
sixty-one.  Yet  so  thoroughly  had  the  consequences  of 
the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  controlled  the  religious  concerns  of 
the  State,  and  so  widespread  was  the  doubt  whether  Con- 
gregationalism could  flourish  outside  of  New  England,  that 
it  was  not  till  May  22,  185  i,  that  the  first  Congregational 
church  in  Chicago  was  organized, — a  city  which  now  con- 
tains fifty-one  churches  of  this  order.  Not  a  little  of  the 
early  growth  of  Congregationalism  in  Illinois  and  the  slow 
reversal  of  the  prejudice  against  the  polity  as  unadapted 
to  frontier  communities  was  due  to  President  Julian  M. 
Sturtevant,  whose  connection  with  Illinois  College  at  Jack- 
sonville,— the  first  Congregational  college  of  the  State, — 
lasted  from  its  opening,  in  1830,  to  his  death,  in  1886. 

In  marked  contrast  to  these  tardy  beginnings  in  Illinois 
was  the  rapid  introduction  of  Congregationalism  into  Iowa, 
— a  region  where  settlements  were  beginning  just  about 
the  time  that  the  revived  interest  in  polity  first  clearly  ap- 
peared. The  credit  for  having  preached  the  first  Prot- 
estant sermon  in  Iowa  belongs  to  a  Methodist,  who  visited 
that  new  Territory  in  1834.  But  the  "American  Home 
Missionary  Society"  was  in  the  field  by  1835,  and  the 
Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists  both  organized  their 
first  churches  in  the  spring  of  1838.  That  of  Denmark, 
which  bears  the  distinction  not  only  of  being  the  first 
church  of  the  Congregational  order  in  Iowa,  but  the  first 
beyond  the  Mississippi,  was  founded  on  May  5,  1838,  in 
a  New  England  settlement  begun  nearly  two  years  before, 
and  had  for  its  minister  Rev.  Asa  Turner,  to  whose  energy 


374  '^^^    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  X. 

and  enthusiasm  the  Congregationahsm  not  only  of  Iowa 
but  of  the  whole  West  is  conspicuously  indebfed.  This 
work,  so  vigorously  begun,  was  taken  up  by  nine  students 
from  Andover  Seminary,  who  had  associated  themselves 
for  missionary  labor  while  at  that  seat  of  learning,  and  who 
now,  on  their  graduation  in  1843,  came  to  Iowa.  Though 
they  did  not  make  the  planting  of  denominationalism  chief, 
they  believed  that  Congregationalism  was  adapted  to  the 
West.  The  members  of  this  "  Iowa  Band  "  were  ordained 
at  Denmark,  November  5,  1843,  ^^^d  at  once  threw  them- 
selves into  the  work  of  upbuilding  Christian  institutions  on 
the  Congregational  model.  Through  their  influence  and 
that  of  Turner,  Congregationalism  thus  took  deep  root  in 
Iowa  while  the  State  was  still  in  the  gristle.  And  Con- 
gregationalism manifested  here  the  same  interest  in  educa- 
tion which  has  always  been  one  of  its  distinguishing  marks. 
In  1843  ^^  academy  was  opened  at  Denmark ;  and  in  1847 
the  earliest  college  in  the  State — Iowa  College — was  es- 
tablished at  Davenport,  though  since  i860  the  location  of 
this  wide-awake  Congregational  school  of  learning  has  been 
at  Grinnell. 

Contemporary  with  these  events  in  Iowa,  the  foundations 
of  Oongregationalism  were  being  laid  in  Wisconsin.  The 
earliest  church  of  this  order  there  was,  indeed,  that  among 
the  Stockbridge  Indians, — a  tribe  that  had  been  gradually 
driven  westward  from  the  Massachusetts  home  where  they 
had  enjoyed  the  services  of  John  Sergeant  and  Jonathan 
Edwards,  till  they  settled  in  Wisconsin  in  1821.  Here,  as 
in  Illinois,  the  Methodists  and  Baptists  were  early  in  the 
field  laboring  among  the  white  immigrants,  establishing 
themselves  in  Wisconsin  in  1835-38.  But  by  July,  1835, 
the  "American  Home  Missionary  Society  "  had  entered 
the  region.  The  first  Congregational  church  of  Wisconsin 
was  gathered  at  Waukesha  on  January  20,  1838,  and  was 


WISCONSIN  AND  MINNESOTA.  375 

followed  in  the  same  year  by  others  at  Kenosha  and  at 
Beloit.  Here  at  Beloit,  nine  years  later,  and  largely 
through  Congregational  eflforts,  one  of  the  most  valued  of 
Western  educational  institutions — Beloit  College — came 
into  full  being.  In  Wisconsin  Presbyterians  and  Congre- 
gationalists  seem  to  have  thought  from  the  first  that  the 
"  Plan  of  Union  "  should  be  laid  aside,  and  that  churches 
should  be  formed  distinctly  of  one  order  or  the  other ;  but 
this  wise  determination  did  not  prevent  cordial  relations 
between  the  two  denominations,  which  united  in  October, 
1840,  in  the  "  Presbyterian  and  Congregational  Convention 
of  Wisconsin."  This  agreement  made  no  provision  for 
composite  churches,  such  as  had  been  characteristic  of  the 
older  union.  From  this  convention  most  of  the  Presby- 
terian churches  withdrew  within  a  few  years,  leaving  it 
essentially  Congregational. 

Minnesota,  the  State  immediately  northwestward  of 
Wisconsin,  was  originally  foreign  missionary  ground.  In 
1835  the  American  Board  began  labor  among  the  Dakota 
Indians  about  Fort  Snelling ;  but  the  few  churches  which 
they  gathered,  some  of  which  contained  white  persons, 
were  affiliated  with  Presbyterianism.  In  1849  the  ''Amer- 
ican Home  Missionary  Society"  entered  the  field;  and 
as  its  first  missionaries  thither  were  Presbyterians,  the 
churches  gathered  in  1849  at  St.  Paul  and  at  Stillwater, 
as  well  as  that  formed  in  1850  at  St.  Anthony,  were  of 
that  order.  But  in  1850  Rev.  Charles  Seccombe  and  Rev. 
Richard  Hall,  missionaries  of  the  same  society  and  of  Con- 
gregational sentiments,  reached  Minnesota.  The  day  for 
founding  mixed  churches  had  about  gone  by ;  and  though 
Seccombe  had  been  commissioned  by  the  society  to  St. 
Anthony,  the  little  Minnesota  Presbytery,  which  had  just 
been  organized,  refused  to  install  him  over  the  Presbyterian 
church  at  that  place  unless  he  would  join  the  Presbytery. 


376  THE    CONG  REG  ATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

This  just  demand  was  met  on  Seccombe's  part  by  an 
equally  justifiable  refusal  to  give  up  his  Congregationalism, 
and  he  therefore  gathered  the  first  Congregational  church 
of  Minnesota  at  St.  Anthony  on  November  i6,  1851, — the 
body  now  known  as  the  First  Church  of  Minneapolis. 
Attempts  on  the  part  of  the  "  Home  Missionary  Society  " 
to  unite  the  two  churches  in  St.  Anthony  resulted  in  the 
ultimate  junction  of  both  in  a  Congregational  body.  In 
Februar}',  1852,  Hall  founded  the  second  Congregational 
church  in  Minnesota,  at  Point  Douglas.  Four  years  later 
the  State  Association  came  into  being;  and  by  1858  the 
Congregational  churches  in  the  region  numbered  thirty, 
largely  owing  to  the  efforts  of  Seccombe  and  Hall.  The 
impulse  thus  early  imparted  has  given  Congregationalism 
a  strong  hold  on  this  State. 

Contemporary  with  the  establishment  of  Congregational- 
ism in  Minnesota  the  permanent  introduction  of  this  polity 
into  Missouri  was  efifected.  The  missionary  spirit  of  New 
England  had  early  gone  out  toward  Missouri.  In  1812 
and  1 8 14  Samuel  J.  Mills  had  investigated  its  religious 
needs  in  behalf  of  the  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts 
Missionary  Societies;  by  181 5  these  bodies  had  begun 
sending  laborers  thither,  and  the  work  was  taken  up  with 
vigor  by  the  "American  Home  Missionary  Society  "  at  its 
organization.  But  partly  owing  to  the  doubt  w^hich  existed 
in  the  minds  of  New  England  men  during  the  early  years 
of  the  century  as  to  whether  Congregationalism  could 
flourish  in  the  West,  and  partly  by  reason  of  the  slight 
sympathy  for  New  England  institutions  felt  by  the  slave- 
holding  and  largely  Southern  population  of  the  State,  Pres- 
byterianism  rather  than  Congregationalism  was  introduced 
by  these  missionaries.  With  the  exception  of  an  abortive 
attempt  to  establish  a  Congregational  church  commenced 
at  Arcadia  in  1841,  the  beginnings  of  this  denomination 


MISSOURI  AND    OREGON.  7,'J'J 

were  at  St.  Louis  on  March  14,  1852,  when  the  First  Con- 
gregational Church  was  formed  through  the  efforts  of  a 
man  to  whom  Western  Congregationahsm  was  profoundly 
indebted, — Rev.  Truman  M.  Post.  This  earnest  Congre- 
gationalist  was  born  in  Middlebury,  Vt.,  in  1810,  and  after 
service  at  Jacksonville,  III,  from  1833  to  1847  as  professor 
in  Illinois  College  and  then  as  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
church,  he  entered  the  ministry  of  the  Third  Presbyterian 
Church  at  St.  Louis  in  1847  on  an  engagement  for  four 
years.  Here  his  views  on  polity  were  well  known,  though 
not  advanced  in  any  underhanded  way,  and  this  knowledge 
led  to  the  establishment  of  a  Congregational  church  under 
his  pastoral  care  soon  after  his  engagement  with  the  Pres- 
byterian body  had  terminated.  Of  this  new  church  he 
continued  the  spiritual  guide  till  his  death,  in  1886  ;  but  his 
influence  was  widely  felt  in  denominational  affairs  and  was 
a  force  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  State  of  his  residence. 
Congregationalism  had  reached  the  Pacific  Ocean  even 
before  the  events  which  have  last  been  noticed.  Oregon, 
the  only  region  claimed  by  the  United  States  which  touched 
that  ocean  till  the  Mexican  War  had  resulted  in  the  con- 
quest of  California,  was  the  first  scene  of  its  operations,  and 
was  at  first  regarded  as  foreign  missionary  ground.  The 
American  Board  entered  upon  attempts  at  the  Christianiza- 
tion  of  the  Indians  in  1835,  sending  out  Marcus  Whitman, 
a  missionary  physician,  and  Rev.  Henry  H.  Spalding,  with 
their  wives.  In  1836  these  pioneers  reached  the  land 
of  their  pilgrimage  by  the  then  perilous  overland  route. 
By  1838  their  labors  were  reinforced  by  those  of  Rev. 
Cushing  Eells,  and  other  workmen  followed.  Oregon  was 
still  in  dispute  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain, 
and  to  Whitman's  energy  and  skill  its  preservation  to  the 
United  States  was  due.  A  journey  to  the  national  capital 
in  the  winter  of   1842-43,  at  great  personal  hazard,  pre- 


378  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

vented  the  possible  abandonment  of  this  valuable  region  to 
Great  Britain  as  not  worth  the  keeping.  Whitman  died  a 
martyr  at  Indian  hands  in  1847  )  while  Eells  lived  till  1893, 
and  interwove  his  long  and  useful  life  in  the  history  of 
the  religious  and  educational  institutions  of  the  States  of 
Oregon  and  Washington.  The  early  missionaries  labored 
of  course  among  the  Indian  natives,  but  with  the  incom- 
ing of  white  settlers  religious  institutions  were  planted 
among  them, — the  first  permanent  Congregational  church 
in  Oregon  being  that  at  Oregon  City,  organized  in  1844. 
On  July  13,  1848,  the  Congregational  ministers  and 
churches  of  Oregon  formed  a  General  Association ;  and 
the  same  year  the  first  laborer  of  the  "American  Home 
Missionary  Society,"  Rev.  Dr.  George  H.  Atkinson,  began 
his  long  career  of  service  to  the  Congregational  churches 
of  the  State.  The  Congregational  love  of  education  was 
exhibited  by  the  founding,  largely  through  the  efforts  of 
these  missionaries,  of  Tualatin  Academy  in  1848,  and  its 
higher  department.  Pacific  University,  in  1853,  at  Forest 
Grove. 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  in  1848  was  followed 
by  the  great  rush  of  emigrants  thither  in  1849,  ^'id  with 
them  came  some  who  were  interested  in  the  souls  of  their 
fellow-men.  Rev.  Timothy  D.  Hunt,  probably  the  first 
Protestant  minister  in  California,  reached  San  Francisco 
in  November,  1848;  and  the  next  year  there  came  Rev. 
Joseph  A.  Benton,  like  Hunt  a  graduate  of  Yale,  and  des- 
tined not  only  to  be  a  leader  in  Congregational  ecclesias- 
tical affairs  on  the  Pacific  Slope,  but  later  to  be  identified 
with  Pacific  Theological  Seminary,  at  Oakland,  from  its 
foundation,  in  1869,  to  his  death,  in  1892.  The  "Old 
School  "  wing  of  the  Presbyterians  was  slightly  in  advance 
in  obtaining  definite  ecclesiastical  organization  in  Califor- 
nia, gathering  a  church  in  May,  1849,  but  the  Congrega- 


CALIFORNIA.  379 

tionalists  were  not  far  behind.  The  First  Church,  San 
Francisco,  came  into  being  on  July  29,  1849,  a-^^d  Rev. 
Mr.  Hunt,  who  had  been  the  first  minister  on  tlie  ground, 
was  speedily  installed  as  its  pastor.  Two  months  later, 
the  second  church  in  California — that  of  Sacramento — was 
formed,  with  Benton  as  its  minister.  In  1857  a  General 
Association  was  organized. 

It  is  thus  evident  that  soon  after  1830  the  denomina- 
tional consciousness,  largely  though  not  wholly  dormant 
in  the  early  part  of  the  century,  began  to  awake,  and  Con- 
gregationalism all  through  the  Western  States  began  to 
take  a  more  self-reliant  and  aggressive  attitude.  Though 
union  efforts  still  continued,  Congregationalists  felt  in- 
creasingly that  their  polity  had  claims  which  could  not 
be  ignored. 

While  this  development  was  in  progress  in  the  West,  a 
few  men  in  the  East  were  slowly  arousing  the  older  churches 
to  a  sense  of  their  heritage  in  polity.  Conspicuous  among 
these  leaders  of  Congregational  thought  was  Rev.  Dr. 
Leonard  Bacon, — the  son  of  a  missionary  sent  forth  by  the 
Connecticut  society,  and  actively  pastor  of  the  First  Church, 
New  Haven,  from  1825  to  1866, — a  relation  which  he  did 
not  wholly  sever  till  his  death,  in  1881.  Dr.  Bacon  was  a 
man  of  commanding  power  as  a  speaker,  of  warm  interest 
in  the  antislavery  movement,  of  marked  taste  for  historical 
study,  and  a  natural  leader  of  men.  From  his  boyhood 
he  was  fascinated  by  the  story  of  the  struggles  and  suc- 
cesses of  the  New  England  forefathers.  One  of  the  earliest 
of  the  literary  productions  of  his  maturer  years  was  the 
volume  of  "Thirteen  Historical  Discourses,"  of  1839,  in 
which  he  told  in  graphic  fashion  the  experiences  for  two 
centuries  of  the  church  of  which  he  was  the  pastor;  one  of 
the  latest  of  his  writings  was  his  "  Genesis  of  the  New 
England  Churches,"  which  he  put  forth  in  1874.      He  was 


38o  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [CiiAr.  x. 

largely  instrumental  in  founding  the  "  New  Englander  "  at 
New  Haven  in  1843,  S-^^ci  the  New  York  "  Independent" 
in  1848;  and  was  a  powerful  opponent  of  slavery.  He 
was  ardently  a  Congregationalist  of  a  broad  and  catholic 
type,  leaning  a  little  to  the  side  of  Independency.  Living; 
in  a  State  where  the  consociational  modification  of  the 
Congregational  system  was  strongly  intrenched,  his  influ- 
ence largely  contributed  to  the  abandonment  of  its  more 
Presbyterianizing  peculiarities.  It  was  Dr.  Bacon's  good 
fortune  to  be  able  to  communicate  this  hearty  love  for  the 
Congregational  polity  to  others,  so  as  to  kindle  an  interest 
in  its  investigation  and  development;  and  in  his  later  life 
he  came  justly  to  be  looked  up  to  with  reverence  in  eccle- 
siastical gatherings  as  an  authority  in  all  matters  of  Con- 
gregational usage. 

Another  leader  to  whom  CongregationaHsm  was  con- 
spicuously indebted  in  this  period  was  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  P. 
Thompson,  like  Bacon  a  graduate  of  Yale,  who  held  the 
pastorate  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Church  in  New  York 
City  from  1845  to  1871.  With  Bacon  he  was  associated 
in  the  establishment  of  the  "New  Englander"  and  the 
"  Independent  "  ;  and  though  he  never  came  to  be  the 
authority  on  Congregational  concerns  that  Bacon  did,  his 
labors  for  the  advancement  of  the  denomination  were  very 
considerable. 

In  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  S.  Clark,  of  Massachusetts,  a  third 
minister  largely  influential  in  the  revived  appreciation  of 
the  New  England  polity  appeared.  A  graduate  of  Am- 
herst College  in  1827,  and  of  Andover  Seminary  in  1831, 
he  had  a  brief  pastorate  at  Sturbridge,  Mass.,  but  his  chief 
activity  was  spent  as  secretary  of  the  "  Massachusetts 
Missionary  Society"  from  1839  to  1857.  His  last  days 
till  his  death,  in  1861,  were  devoted  to  the  service  of  the 
"  Congregational   Library  "  and   of  the  "  Congregational 


BACON,    THOMPSON,  AND   CLARK.  38 1 

Quarterly,"  of  which  there  will  be  occasion  later  to  speak. 
No  man  knew  the  story  of  the  Massachusetts  churches 
better  than  he,  and  none  was  more  convinced  that  Con- 
gregationalism had  a  mission.  He  had  little  patience  with 
the  readiness  to  subordinate  polity  to  plans  of  union  mani- 
fested so  often  by  the  Congregationalists  of  the  first  third 
of  this  century.  "  We  have  been  well  called  '  the  Lord's 
silly  people,'  "  he  declared  ;  and  his  opposition  to  such  un- 
wisdom increased  with  his  advancing  years. 

The  efforts  of  these  men,  and  of  others  whom  they 
aroused  or  who  labored  with  them,  were  greatly  aided  by 
the  ever-increasing  study  of  the  life  and  ideals  of  early 
New  England, — a  study  in  which  all  scholarly  New  Eng- 
land has  joined,  and  which  has  made  the  work  and  aims  of 
the  founders  more  familiarly  and  definitely  known  with  each 
passing  year  since  the  early  part  of  the  present  century. 

The  first  impulse  emanating  from  an  official  source  look- 
ing toward  greater  recognition  of  the  unity  of  Congrega- 
tionalism, East  and  West,  the  removal  of  doctrinal  preju- 
dice, and  a  more  aggressive  assertion  of  Congregational 
claims,  appears  to  have  come  from  the  then  newly  formed 
General  Association  of  Michigan.  In  1845  Rev.  L.  Smith 
Hobart,  a  Yale  graduate  of  1837,  then  pastor  of  the  church 
at  Union  City,  Mich.,  and  secretary  of  the  Michigan  As- 
sociation, proposed  a  ''  General  Convention  of  Western 
Congregationalists "  to  deliberate  concerning  denomina- 
tional advancement ;  and,  as  a  result  of  an  approval  of  this 
recommendation  by  the  body  of  which  Hobart  was  secre- 
tary, such  a  "  Convention  "  brought  together  representa- 
tives of  the  churches  of  the  Northwestern  States  and  a  few 
men  from  the  East  at  Michigan  City,  Ind.,  in  July,  1846. 
That  body  declared  the  adherence  of  the  Western  churches 
to  the  historic  theology  of  New  England,  and  discussed 
the  feasibility  of  abrogating  the  "  Plan  of  Union." 


382  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

This  impulse  which  went  out  from  Michigan  was  taken 
up  by  the  oldest  of  the  General  Associations  on  what  had 
been  Western  home  missionary  ground, — that  of  New 
York, — and  largely  through  the  efforts  of  Rev.  Dr.  J.  P. 
Thompson,  of  whom  mention  has  already  been  made.  As 
a  result  of  an  invitation  issued  by  that  body,  asking  every 
Congregational  church  in  the  United  States  that  felt  so 
disposed  to  send  its  pastor  and  a  delegate,  there  gathered 
at  Albany,  N.  Y.,  on  October  5,  1852,  the  first  council  or 
synod  representative  of  American  Congregationalism  as  a 
whole  that  had  met  since  the  Cambridge  Synod  of  1646- 
48.  In  this  "  Albany  Convention "  four  hundred  and 
sixty-three  pastors  and  messengers  from  the  churches  of 
seventeen  States  gathered.  It  was  a  body  illustrative  of 
the  best  spirit  and  embracing  the  leaders  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches  of  East  and  West.  And  it  proceeded  at 
once  to  examine  the  denominational  situation  with  fullness. 
Its  Business  Committee,  under  the  guidance  of  Rev.  Dr. 
Bacon,  of  New  Haven,  speedily  announced  its  work  to 
be  to  discuss:  "  i.  The  construction  and  practical  opera- 
tion of  the  '  Plan  of  Union.'  ...  2.  The  building  of  Church 
Edifices  at  the  West.  3.  The  system  and  operations  of 
the  'American  Home  Missionary  Society.'  4.  The  inter- 
course between  the  Congregationalists  of  New  England 
and  those  of  other  States.  5.  The  local  work  and  respon- 
sibility of  a  Congregational  Church.  6.  The  bringing  for- 
ward of  Candidates  for  the  Ministry.  7.  The  re-publication 
of  the  Works  of  our  standard  Theological  writers." 

The  labors  of  the  "Albany  Convention,"  thus  vigorously 
mapped  out,  were  carried  out  with  equal  energy.  After 
a  thorough  debate,  the  "  Plan  of  Union  "  was  abandoned 
by  a  unanimous  vote ;  the  "American  Home  Missionary 
Society "  was  approved  as  impartial  in  its  administra- 
tion and   the  "  American  Education  Society  "  was  com- 


THE   "ALBANY  CONVENTION."  383 

mended;  intercourse  between  the  Congregationalists  of 
the  East  and  the  West  was  urged,  and  "  insinuations  and 
charges  of  heresy  in  doctrine  and  of  disorder  in  practice  " 
of  a  vague  and  sweeping  nature  "  made  against  Congre- 
gationalists at  the  West"  were  discountenanced;  the  re- 
printing and  circulation  of  the  works  of  the  fathers  and 
theologians  of  New  England  was  advocated ;  and  the 
growing  opposition  of  Congregationalism  toward  slavery 
was  manifested  in  a  unanimous  vote  that  the  missionary 
societies  ought  to  support  only  such  ministers  in  slave 
States  as  would  "  so  preach  the  gospel  .  .  .  that,  with  the 
blessing  of  God,  it  shall  have  its  full  effect  in  awakening 
and  enlightening  the  moral  sense  in  regard  to  slavery,  and 
in  bringing  to  pass  the  speedy  aboHtion  of  that  stupendous 
wrong."  But  the  most  efficient  aid  given  by  the  "Albany 
Convention  "  to  denominational  extension  was  its  call  for 
$50,000  to  aid  in  erecting  meeting-houses  in  Ohio,  Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin,  Iowa,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Missouri,  and  Min- 
nesota. The  response  from  the  churches  to  this  appeal 
was  immediate  and  hearty,  and  their  gifts  reached  the  sum 
of  $61,891.  A  more  permanent  reply  was  the  organiza- 
tion at  New  York  in  May,  1853,  of  the  body  then  called  the 
"  American  Congregational  Union," — an  indefinite  title 
which  was  exchanged  in  1892  for  the  descriptive  name 
"  Congregational  Church  Building  Society."  This  asso- 
ciation was  broadly  planned  "  to  collect,  preserve,  and 
publish  authentic  information  concerning  the  history,  con- 
dition, and  continual  progress  of  the  Congregational 
churches  in  all  parts  of  this  country,"  and  "  to  promote, 
— by  tracts  and  books,  by  devising  and  recommending  to 
the  public  plans  of  cooperation  in  building  meeting-houses 
and  parsonages, —  .  .  .  the  progress  and  well- working  of 
the  Congregational  Church  polity."  In  this  effort  it  began 
in  1854  the  publication  of  the  "  Year  Book  "  of  denomina- 


384  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

tional  statistics,  which  passed  later  to  the  pages  of  the 
"  Congregational  Quarterly,"  and  is  now  issued  under  the 
editorial  superintendence  of  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  A.  Hazen, 
by  the  Publishing  Committee  of  the  National  Council, 
through  the  "  Congregational  Sunday-school  and  Publish- 
ing Society."  The  main  work  of  the  "American  Con- 
gregational Union "  has  been,  however,  the  payment  of 
"last  bills"  after  needy  churches  have  done  all  in  their 
power  to  provide  themselves  with  buildings ;  and  by  this 
work  the  society  has  been  a  conspicuous  factor  in  Con- 
gregational advancement.  At  the  close  of  its  first  forty 
years  of  existence  (1893)  it  had  completed  2340  houses 
of  worship  and  309  parsonages,  and  had  given  permanency 
to  many  a  struggling  church  which  would  otherwise  have 
perished. 

A  further  consequence  of  the  "  Albany  Convention," 
more  local  in  its  effects,  but  nevertheless  of  general  im- 
portance to  American  Congregationalism,  was  the  reorgan- 
ization at  Boston  of  the  "  Congregational  Library  Associa- 
tion "  in  the  same  month  that  saw  the  beginnings  of  the 
"American  Congregational  Union."  The  germ  of  such 
an  undertaking  originated  as  early  as  1838  in  the  thought 
of  Professors  Bela  B.  Edwards  and  Edwards  A.  Park,  of 
Andover  Seminary,  and  in  1847  Professor  Edwards  pub- 
licly advocated  such  an  undertaking.  A  beginning  was 
made  in  a  comparatively  feeble  way,  and  a  society  drawing 
its  membership  from  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Boston  was 
founded  in  Februar}^  1 85  i .  This  body  was  now  remodeled 
and  its  membership  greatly  extended  on  May  25,  1853, 
when  its  largely  efficient  life  really  began.  The  library 
thus  instituted  has  become  the  chief  single  storehouse  of 
Congregational  literature  on  the  continent,  and  now  con- 
tains 32,000  volumes,  besides  nearly  60,000  pamphlets. 
But  as  its  work  went  on  the  thoughts  of  the  "  Congrega- 


NEIV  SOCIETIES,  3^5 

tional  Library  Association  "  began  to  turn  toward  the  pos- 
session of  a  "  Congregational  House,"  which  might  furnish 
accommodation  for  such  of  the  benevolent  societies  of  this 
order  as  had  their  offices  in  Boston  and  serve  as  denomina- 
tional headquarters.  An  old  residence  was  purchased  in 
the  spring  of  1857;  and  with  a  view  to  these  enlarging 
functions  the  name  of  the  body  was  altered  in  1864  to 
"  American  Congregational  Association," — a  title  which  it 
still  retains.  It  was  not  till  1871,  however,  that  the  present 
well-located  but  ill-arranged  ''  Congregational  House  "  was 
obtained.  It  is  the  ambition  of  the  society  to  replace  the 
ancient  structure  speedily  with  a  building  more  worthy  of 
the  denomination;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
possession  of  a  "  House  "  at  all,  as  well  as  the  magnificent 
library,  is  in  no  small  measure  owing  to  the  impulse  that 
went  out  from  the  "  Albany  Convention."  Not  a  little  of 
the  success  of  this  Association  and  its  library  is  due  to  the 
untiring  labors  of  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  S.  Clark,  its  correspond- 
ing secretary  and  librarian  from  1853  to  his  death,  in  1861, 
and  of  his  successor  till  1887,  Rev.  Dr.  Isaac  P.  Lang- 
worthy. 

While  this  movement  for  the  preservation  of  Con- 
gregational literature  and  the  housing  of  the  Congre- 
gational missionary  societies  was  in  its  beginnings,  there 
was  entering  upon  a  pastorate  at  Boston  a  man  to  whom 
Congregationalism  is  as  much  indebted  as  to  any  who  may 
be  named  among  its  founders  or  expounders, — Rev.  Henry 
Martyn  Dexter.  Dr.  Dexter  was  of  Pilgrim  blood,  a  native 
of  Plympton,  Mass.,  a  township  which  has  been  carved  out 
of  old  Plymouth.  Born  in  1821,  his  education  was  at 
Brow^n  University  and  at  Yale  College,  and  after  his  grad- 
uation at  the  latter  institution  in  1840,  his  theological 
instruction  was  received  at  Andover.  A  pastorate  at 
Manchester,  N.    H.,  lasted  from    1844  to    1849,  when  he 


386  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

was  settled  over  what  is  now  Berkeley  Temple.  Boston, — 
a  relation  which  he  continued  till  1867.  Dr.  Dexter's  in- 
clination toward  religious  journalism  was  marked,  and  in 
185 1  he  became  the  editor  of  the  "  Congregationalist," 
which  had  commenced  its  career  in  1849.  Under  his  hand 
it  prospered,  and  in  1867  it  was  united  with  the  pioneer  of 
the  American  weekly  religious  press,  the  "  Boston  Re- 
corder," which  dated  its  origin  from  18 16.  Of  this  joint 
publication,  generally  known  simply  as  the  "  Congrega- 
tionalist," Dr.  Dexter  remained  till  his  death,  in  1890,  the 
editor-in-chief  and  one  of  the  proprietors;  and  he  made 
it  the  most  influential  journal  of  Congregationalism. 

Dr.  Dexter  was  a  man  of  painstaking  scholarly  accuracy 
and  of  indefatigable  industry,  and  all  his  enthusiasm  was 
drawn  out  by  the  story  of  Congregationalism  and  especially 
of  its  beginnings.  In  the  pursuit  of  the  obscure  facts  of  the 
rise  of  the  denomination  he  ransacked  the  libraries  and  ar- 
chives of  England  and  Holland,  while  his  own  library,  now 
in  the  possession  of  Yale  University,  is  the  best  collection  of 
Congregational  sources  ever  brought  together  by  a  single 
student.  It  was  with  him  a  collection  for  use,  and  the 
emplo}'ment  he  made  of  it  is  revealed  in  his  elaborate  con- 
tributions to  Congregational  history.  Twenty-five  pub- 
lications from  his  pen  are  enumerated,  besides  his  constant 
editorial  writings.  His  "  Congregationalism :  What  it  Is, 
Whence  it  Is,  and  How  it  Works,"  printed  in  1865,  is  the 
ablest  and  most  thorough  modern  exposition  of  the  claims 
and  methods  of  this  polit}-.  His  monumental  work,  "  The 
Congregationalism  of  the  Last  Three  Hundred  Years,"  put 
forth  in  1880,  is  not  only  a  treasure-house  of  facts  regard- 
ing the  early  history  of  the  body,  gathered  from  the  most 
obscure  sources  oftentimes  and  combined  with  remarkable 
skill,  it  is  indispensable  to  the  student  of  Congregationalism 
by  reason  of  its  enormous  bibliographical  apparatus.      His 


HENRY  M.  DEXTER.  387 

"As  to  Roger  Williams  "  of  1876  and  "The  True  Story 
of  John  Smyth  "  of  1881  are  careful  siftings  of  the  evidence 
regarding  disputed  passages  of  Congregational  story  ;  while 
his  "  Handbook  of  Congregationalism,"  published  in  1880, 
is  the  most  extensively  used  compendium  of  the  polity 
which  it  treats  in  outline.  But  Dr.  Dexter  was  much  more 
than  a  mere  student,  he  was  an  active  man  of  affairs.  No 
voice  was  more  influential  than  his  in  his  later  life  in  Con- 
gregational assemblies.  He  was  a  large-hearted,  generous, 
clear-sighted,  and  honorable  leader.  His  Congregation- 
alism was  so  intense  as  to  reach  the  jure  divino  height 
seldom  attained  by  modern  Congregationalists,  though 
characteristic  of  the  first  century  of  the  history  of  the 
denomination ;  but  he  held  his  views  in  no  spirit  of  un- 
charitableness.  He  opposed  all  Presbyterianizing  tenden- 
cies ;  but  he  welcomed  attempts  at  the  expression  of 
denominational  unity  by  deliberative  assemblies  on  a  na- 
tional scale  and  by  missionary  societies  rendered  actually 
representative  of  and  responsible  to  the  churches.  He, 
certainly  more  than  any  other  man,  pointed  out  the  line  of 
development  in  polity  actually  taken  by  American  Congre- 
gationalism from  1865  to  the  present  day;  and  he  deserves 
a  high  rank  among  those  who  are  reckoned  the  formulators 
and  developers  of  the  Congregational  system. 

With  Dr.  Dexter  there  was  closely  associated  in  his  more 
public  labors  for  denominational  advancement  a  still  ac- 
tive minister,  Rev.  Dr.  Alonzo  H.  Quint,  perhaps  the  ablest 
ecclesiastical  parliamentarian  that  modern  Congregation- 
alism has  produced,  and  a  thorough  student  of  its  polity. 
From  1853  to  1863  Dr.  Quint  was  Dexter's  near  ministerial 
neighbor,  as  pastor  of  the  Central  Church  at  Jamaica  Plain, 
Mass.,  and  though  Dr.  Quint's  later  pastoral  labors  and 
other  activities  have  sometimes  carried  him  farther  away 
from  Boston,  his  connection  with  all  Congregational  devel- 


388  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

opments  that  have  flowed  out  from  eastern  Massachusetts 
has  been  intimate. 

It  was  in  November,  1858,  that  Rev.  Drs.  Dexter,  Quint, 
and  Joseph  S.  Clark  joined  in  the  projection  of  a  magazine 
of  Congregational  history,  biography,  statistical  investiga- 
tion, and  ex]30sition  of  polity,  which  should  do  a  more 
positive  work  for  the  memory  of  the  past  of  Congrega- 
tionalism and  its  present  advancement  than  any  existing 
periodical.  The  plan,  which  originated  with  Dr.  Dexter, 
was  laid  before  the  "  Congregational  Library  Association  " 
in  November,  1858,  and  the  result  was  the  issue  of  the  first 
number  of  the  "Congregational  Quarterly"  in  January, 
1859,  under  the  editorship  of  the  three  ministers  whose 
names  have  been  mentioned,  and  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Association.  \Vith  its  second  issue  it  also  obtained  the 
official  approval  of  the  "American  Congregational  Union" 
of  New  York,  and  the  secretary  of  that  society.  Rev.  Isaac 
P.  Langvvorthy,  was  added  to  its  editorial  force.  The 
usual  vicissitudes  of  religious  journalism  produced  various 
editorial  changes  during  the  twenty  years  of  life  which 
the  "  Quarterly  "  enjoyed  ;  but  though  the  magazine  never 
received  the  support  from  the  churches  which  it  deserved, 
it  was  one  of  the  most  important  educational  agencies  of 
Congregationalism  during  the  period  of  development  from 
its  inception  to  the  establishment  of  the  triennial  National 
Council  in  1871. 

While  this  development  of  Congregational  activity  was 
in  progress  in  the  East,  the  revived  denominational  spirit 
which  had  led  to  the  "Albany  Convention  "  was  producing 
no  less  important  results  in  the  West.  Chief  of  these 
consequences  was  the  foundation  of  a  new  Congregational 
theological  seminary  at  Chicago.  The  thought  of  this  in- 
stitution for  ministerial  education  seems  to  have  come  to 
its  first  expression  by  an  organized  ecclesiastical  body  in 


CHICAGO   SEMINARY.  389 

the  wide-awake  General  Association  of  Michigan,  which 
had  already  led  the  way  in  securing  united  action  favorable 
to  denomination  extension  by  Western  Congregationalists. 
At  its  meeting  at  Ann  Arbor,  May  31,  1853,  Rev.  L. 
Smith  Hobart,  already  conspicuous  in  Michigan  Congre- 
gational affairs,  presented  "  a  plan  for  Theological  educa- 
tion," which  the  Association  referred  to  a  committee  for 
report  the  following  year.  A  carefully  prepared  "  Plan 
for  a  Theological  Seminary"  was  accordingly  prepared; 
and  having  been  duly  approved  by  the  Michigan  General 
Association  in  1854,  was  laid  by  it  before  the  other  Asso- 
ciations of  the  Northwestern  States.  Iowa  was  the  first 
to  respond  favorably,  on  June  7,  1854,  and  the  other  bodies 
gradually  fell  into  line.  The  result  was  that,  after  some 
preliminary  negotiation,  a  convention  of  clerical  and  lay 
delegates,  representing  the  churches  of  Michigan,  Iowa, 
Indiana,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  and  Missouri,  met  at  Chicago 
on  September  26  and  2^,  1854,  and  organized  the  Chicago 
Seminary, — the  first  theological  seminary  of  any  denomi- 
nation in  Chicago, — appointing  boards  of  directors  and 
examiners,  or  ''visitors."  The  seminary  thus  constituted 
was  opened  for  students  on  October  6,  1858.  The  founders 
were  far-sighted  and  ingenious,  and  they  had  the  advan- 
tage of  living  in  a  time  when  confidence  in  the  power  of 
the  Congregational  polity  to  care  for  institutions  represen- 
tative of  large  bodies  of  our  churches  was  much  greater 
than  when  the  New  England  seminaries  were  instituted. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  committing  their  foundation  to  the 
charge  of  a  self-perpetuating  board  of  trustees,  whose  ac- 
tion was  supervised  by  an  equally  self-perpetuating  board 
of  visitors,  and  the  orthodoxy  of  whose  professional 
appointments  was  tested  by  an  unalterable  creed,  as  at 
Andover;  or  making  their  foundation  simply  a  department 
of  a  imiversity  responsible  to  the  general  corporation  which 


390  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

governs  the  whole  educational  institution,  as  at  Yale ;  or 
placing  its  control  in  the  hands  of  a  hoard  of  trustees 
elected  by  a  self-perpetuating  ministerial  club,  as  at  Hart- 
ford,— they  adopted  the  much  more  Congregational  plan 
of  making  the  seminary  depend  ultimately  on  the  churches, 
its  directors  and  visitors  being  chosen  by  a  convention  of 
the  churches  of  the  States  west  of  Ohio  and  east  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  meeting  triennially  at  Chicago,  and  in 
which  every  one  of  those  churches  has  a  right  to  be  repre- 
sented by  its  minister  and  a  delegate.  To  this  convention, 
and  through  it  to  the  churches,  Chicago  Seminary  is  re- 
sponsible for  its  teaching  and  its  administration.  The 
seminary,  which  commenced  its  work  in  1858  with  two 
professors  and  twenty- nine  students,  has  grown  marvel- 
ously,  and  now  has  in  attendance  two  hundred  and  two 
young  men,  while  its  faculty,  its  buildings,  and  its  endow- 
ment give  it  high  rank  among  Congregational  institutions 
for  ministerial  training. 

Something  of  the  new  strength  of  Congregationalism  in 
Chicago  was  due  to  the  entrance  on  a  pastorate  over  the 
First  Church  in  that  city  in  1857,  the  year  before  the 
seminary  opened  its  doors,  of  an  earnest  and  influential 
upholder  of  Congregational  ideals, — Rev.  Dr.  William  W. 
Patton.  Dr.  Patton  was  a  native  of  New^  York  City,  born 
in  1 82 1,  who  had  served  churches  in  Boston  and  Hartford, 
and  who  now  for  twenty  years  was  connected  with  Con- 
gregational interests  in  Chicago.  His  last  years,  from  1877 
to  his  death,  in  1889,  were  spent  as  president  of  that  noble 
institution  for  the  education  of  colored  youth  at  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  Howard  University.  On  September  5,  1867, 
the  first  number  of  the  "Advance  "  was  issued  at  Chicago, 
and  Dr.  Patton  remained  the  editor  of  this  widely  influen- 
tial Congregational  w^eekly  till  1872. 

Meanwhile  Congregationalism  was  pushing  rapidly  into 


IN   THE  NEW   WEST.  39 1 

the  newer  West.  October  9,  1854,  saw  the  formation  of 
the  first  church  of  tliis  order  in  Kansas,  at  Lawrence ;  and 
a  General  Association-  followed  in  August,  1855.  Ne- 
braska's first  Congregational  church,  that  of  Omaha,  came 
into  being  on  May  4,  1856,  and  the  Association  followed 
on  August  8,  1857.  Colorado  received  Congregationalism 
in  1863, — a  church  being  gathered  at  Central  City  on 
August  23d,  and  being  followed  by  churches  at  Denver  and 
Boulder  in  1864,  and  by  an  Association  on  March  10,  1868. 
What  is  now  South  Dakota  was  reached  in  1868,  and  a 
church  organized  at  Yankton  on  April  8th,  of  which  Rev. 
Dr.  Joseph  Ward,  one  of  the  most  useful  of  the  more 
recent  Congregational  ministry,  was  pastor  from  1869  to 
1883,  when  he  entered  upon  the  presidency  of  Yankton 
College,  which  he  had  helped  to  found  in  1881, — a  post 
that  he  held  till  his  untimely  death,  in  1889.  Still  exist- 
ing churches  were  formed  in  the  State  of  Washington,  at 
Seattle,  in  1870;  in  Nevada,  at  Reno,  in  1871  ;  in  Utah, 
at  Salt  Lake  City,  in  1874;  in  Indian  Territory,  in  1876; 
in  Arizona,  at  Prescott,  in  1880;  and  the  same  year  in 
New  Mexico,  at  Albuquerque;  in  North  Dakota,  at  Fargo 
and.  elsewhere,  in  1881.  Idaho  and  Montana  saw  the  es- 
tablishment of  permanent  churches  in  1882  ;  and  Oklahoma 
in  1889. 

This  extension  was  marked,  as  elsewhere  in  the  story  of 
Congregationalism,  by  the  desire  to  establish  institutions 
of  Christian  learning.  Among  the  colleges  which  now 
came  into  being,  chiefly  through  Congregational  efforts, 
are:  Washburn,  at  Topeka,  Kan.,  in  1865;  Carleton,  at 
Northfield,  Minn.,  in  1867;  Doane,  at  Crete,  Neb.,  in 
1872;  Drury,  at  Springfield,  Mo.,  in  1873;  Colorado,  at 
Colorado  Springs,  Col,  in  1874;  Yankton,  as  has  been 
noted,  in  1881  ;  Whitman,  at  Walla  Walla,  Ore.,  in  1883 
(on  the  basis  of  an  academy  founded  by  Rev.   Cushing 


392  THE    CONGREGA  TIOA'ALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

Eells  in  1859  and  opened  in  1866);  and  Fargo,  at  Fargo, 
N.  D.,  in  1887. 

A  more  distinctly  ecclesiastical  undertaking  was  the  organ- 
ization by  the  Congregationalists  of  California  in  1 866  of  a 
"Theological  Seminary  Association,"  which  opened  in  June, 
1869,  the  youngest  of  our  denominational  schools  of  minis- 
terial instruction.  Pacific  Theological  Seminary,  at  Oakland. 

One  name  cannot  be  omitted  from  this  story  of  increas- 
ing denominational  strength,  though  it  belongs  to  the  latter 
part  of  the  period  just  held  in  review, — that  of  Rev.  Dr.  A. 
Hastings  Ross,  the  most  original  contributor  to  the  discus- 
sion of  Congregational  polity  that  the  West  has  developed. 
Dr.  Ross  was  a  native  of  Winchendon,  Mass.,  in  183 1,  a 
graduate  of  Oberlin  College  and  of  Andover  Seminary, 
who  after  a  pastorate  at  Boylston  in  the  State  of  his  birth 
from  1 86 1  to  1866,  served  successively  the  churches  of 
Springfield  and  Columbus,  Ohio;  and  then  from  1876  to 
his  death,  in  1893,  the  church  of  Port  Huron,  Mich.  Dr. 
Ross  early  became  a  student  of  the  Congregational  system 
of  government,  publishing  much  in  its  illustration  and  his- 
torical exposition.  His  best  known  and  most  useful  works 
were  his  "  Pocket  Manual  of  Congregationalism,"  which  he 
put  forth  in  1883,  and  his  elaborate  treatise,  "The  Church- 
Kingdom,"  of  1887.  His  thinking,  though  strictly  Congre- 
gational, linked  itself  less  definitely  with  the  historic  pres- 
entations of  the  polity  than  did  that  of  Dr.  Dexter.  He 
was  more  of  an  innovator,  and  more  of  an  asserter  of  the 
powers  of  ecclesiastical  associations.  His  most  marked  and 
probably  his  most  permanently  influential  view, — that  re- 
garding the  basis  of  ministerial  standing, — was,  however, 
largely  the  outgrowth  of  what  must  be  considered  a  posi- 
tive improvement  in  Congregational  usage  which  had  come 
about  at  the  West.  As  instituted  in  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  and  beginning 


A.  HASTINGS  J? OSS.  393 

of  the  eighteenth  centuries,  the  local  Associations  were 
simply  assemblies  of  ministers,  and  such  they  largely  con- 
tinue to  be  in  the  New  England  States.  It  has  already 
been  seen  that  these  Associations  had  for  one  of  their  duties 
the  recommendation  of  candidates  to  vacant  churches,  and 
the  custom  of  licensure  thus  established  has  persisted  in 
New  England  to  the  present  day.  The  chief  infelicity 
of  this  arrangement  is  that  it  makes  a  preacher's  appro- 
bation to  the  churches  the  work  of  a  ministerial  body  and 
not  that  of  the  churches  themselves.  The  increasing  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  churches  for  consultation  and  local  help- 
fulness has  led  to  the  general  introduction  into  New  Eng- 
land, in  addition  to  the  Associations,  during  the  present 
century,  of  district  and  State  meetings  for  discussion,  com- 
posed of  representatives  of  the  churches  and  of  the  ministers, 
usually  under  the  name  of  "  Conferences."  These  "  Con- 
ferences "  do  not  take  the  place  of  councils,  they  do  not 
advise  in  the  formation  or  discontinuance  of  pastoral  re- 
lationships, or  in  the  establishment  of  new  churches,  nor 
do  they  attempt  to  solve  church  quarrels,  as  a  council 
does ;  they  are  meetings  for  friendly  discussion,  and  for 
the  choice  of  representatives  to  State  and  national  assem- 
blies. In  the  West,  however,  the  "Associations  "  were  early 
and  generally  composed  of  representatives  of  churches  as 
well  as  of  ministers ;  and  they  have  continued  to  exercise 
the  functions  both  of  the  New  England  Associations  and 
Conferences,  thus  causing  ministerial  licensure  to  inhere  in 
bodies  truly  representative  of  the  churches, — a  method 
undoubtedly  more  consistent  with  Congregational  prin- 
ciples than  that  usual  in  New  England. 

It  was  this  Western  development  of  the  Association  that 
Dr.  Ross  proposed  to  make  the  basis  of  churchly  and  min- 
isterial standing.  In  the  Congregationalism  of  the  "  Cam- 
bridge   Platform "    a    minister    remains    such    only   while 


394  '^HE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

actually  in  ministerial  relations  to  a  definite  church ;  but 
this  theory,  though  ably  defended  by  expounders  of  polity 
like  Dr.  Dexter,  was  early  practically  disregarded,  and  a 
man  once  set  apart  for  ministerial  service  by  ordination 
came  popularly  to  be  looked  upon  as  in  some  sense  always 
a  minister,  whether  in  a  pastorate  or  not.  This  abiding 
ministerial  character  raised  the  question  of  "  ministerial 
standing  "  and  responsibility.  How  should  the  good  char- 
acter of  a  minister  not  in  the  service  of  a  local  church  be 
assured  to  others,  and  to  whom  should  he  be  responsible 
for  his  delinquencies  ?  The  question  became  more  press- 
ing as  the  country  grew  larger  and  ministerial  changes 
more  frequent.  For  this  difficulty  Dr.  Ross  proposed  a 
remedy  in  placing  "  accountable  ministerial  standing  in 
District  Associations,  with  the  right  of  appeal  in  case  of 
injustice  to  a  council  of  churches."  In  a  like  manner  Dr. 
Ross  would  give  churches  standing  and  accountability  in 
Associations.  Probably  the  old  consociational  system  of 
Connecticut  gave  to  Dr.  Ross  some  hints  as  to  his  plan ; 
but  it  was  chiefly  due  to  his  own  systematizing  of  elements 
already  appearing  in  Western  Congregational  development. 
It  would  be  too  much  to  affirm  that  Dr.  Ross's  suggestions 
have  become  generally  recognized  Congregational  usage. 
His  theor}^  of  churchly  standing  certainly  has  not ;  but  his 
view  as  to  ministerial  standing  bids  fair  to  become  so,  the 
National  Council  having  voted  at  its  session  of  1886  "  that 
the  State  organizations  and  local  organizations  of  churches 
be  recommended  to  consider  such  modification  of  their 
constitution  as  will  enable  them  to  become  responsible  for 
the  ministerial  standing  of  ministers  within  their  bounds,  in 
harmony  with  the  principle  that  the  churches  of  any  locality 
decide  upon  their  own  fellowship." 

While  this  Western  development  of  Congregationalism 
bad  been  in  progress,  the  great  Civil  War  had  convulsed 


MINISTERIAL    STANDING.  395 

the  United  States  and  brought  its  burden  of  responsibihty 
and  opportunity  upon  the  Congregational  as  upon  the  other 
Christian  bodies  of  the  land.  Unlike  some  American  de- 
nominations, the  Congregational  body  was  not  rent  by  the 
struggle.  Although  a  few  churches  of  this  order  existed 
at  the  South  before  the  war,  the  denomination  never  ob- 
tained any  footing  which  made  it  a  factor  in  the  religious 
life  of  that  region  so  long  as  slavery  continued.  The  atti- 
tude toward  human  bondage  assumed  by  the  "  Albany 
Convention"  in  1852  has  already  been  noticed,  and  Con- 
gregationalism both  in  New  England  and  the  West  was 
strongly  antislavery  for  many  years  before  the  rebellion 
began.  But  if  the  Civil  War  did  not  bring  to  the  denomi- 
nation a  problem  of  division  and  reorganization,  it  did  open 
to  denominational  effort  a  section  of  country  which  had 
never  generally  accepted  Congregationalism  by  removing 
that  which  the  Northern  churches  of  this  order  believed 
was  the  greatest  hindrance  to  their  southward  spread, — 
slavery ;  and  it  presented  a  problem  in  the  emancipated 
negro  that  appealed  powerfully  to  the  missionary  spirit  of 
these  churches.  So  desirable  was  cooperation  in  meeting 
the  opportunites  of  the  hour  felt  to  be,  that  at  least  a  year 
before  the  conclusion  of  hostilities  an  extensive  movement 
was  in  progress  looking  toward  a  general  council  of  the 
representatives  of  American  Congregationalism. 

The  impulse  toward  this  gathering  went  forth,  it  is  in^- 
teresting  to  note,  from  that  "  Convention  of  the  Congrega- 
tional Churches  of  the  Northwest,"  which  met  once  in  three 
years  at  Chicago  to  choose  the  directors  and  visitors  of 
the  Chicago  Seminary,  and  to  consider  the  interests  of  the 
great  region  from  which  the  members  of  the  Convention 
were  gathered.  That  body,  under  the  leadership  of  Rev. 
Dr.  T.  M.  Post,  of  St.  Louis,  voted  that,  in  its  opinion, 
''  the  crisis  demands  general  consultation,  cooperation,  and 


396  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  fCiiAr.  x. 

concert  among  our  churches,  and  to  these  ends,  requires 
extensive  correspondence  among  our  ecclesiastical  asso- 
ciations, or  the  assembling  of  a  National  Congregational 
Convention."  A  month  later  the  proposals  of  the  Chicago 
Convention  were  laid  before  the  General  Association  of 
Illinois,  and  by  that  assembly  a  proposition  for  a  "  Na- 
tional Convention,"  like  that  which  met  at  Albany  in  1852, 
was  sent  to  the  other  State  Associations ;  and,  before  the 
summer  of  1864  was  over,  received  the  approval  success- 
ively of  the  representatives  of  the  churches  of  Indiana, 
Michigan,  Iowa,  Ohio,  Rhode  Island,  Maine,  Connecticut, 
Vermont,  Massachusetts,  New  York,  and  Minnesota.  The 
churches  of  New  Hampshire  were  di\ided,  and  there  the 
State  body  disfavored  the  proposal.  By  the  several  ap- 
proving State  Associations  committees  were  appointed,  by 
whose  joint  action  the  plan  of  the  national  gathering  should 
be  perfected  ;  and,  as  a  result  of  their  negotiations  in  a 
"  Preliminary  Conference  "  at  New  York  on  November  16, 
1864,  a  "  National  Council  "  was  called  to  meet  at  Boston 
on  June  14,  1865,  having  as  its  members  clerical  and  lay 
representatives  of  the  churches,  chosen  by  the  local  con- 
ferences or  associations  in  the  proportion  of  two  for  each 
ten  churches,  or  fraction  of  ten  in  excess  of  one  half,  united 
in  each  such  local  body.  At  the  same  time  a  number  of 
topics  for  discussion  were  agreed  upon,  covering  a  wide 
range  of  denominational  interests,  and  committees  were 
designated  by  which  these  themes  should  be  suitably  pre- 
sented to  the  Council. 

On  the  day  appointed,  the  "National  Council"  gathered 
together  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-house  at  Boston  a 
membership  of  five  hundred  and  two  representatives  of  the 
churches.  It  was  the  most  important  convention  that  had 
met  since  the  Cambridge  Synod,  and  it  was  much  more 
widely  representati\'e  than  its  immediate  predecessor,  the 


THE   "NATIONAL    COUNCIL''   OF  1865.  397 

"Albany  Convention."  It  was  a  Council  well  worthy  of 
the  churches,  both  in  the  distinguished  character  of  its 
membership  and  the  thoroughness  with  which  the  topics 
presented  to  its  consideration  were  discussed.  The  signifi- 
cance of  the  opportunities  opening  before  the  Congrega- 
tional body  were  thoroughly  appreciated,  and  an  earnest 
advance  to  meet  them  was  urged ;  but  probably  the  most 
memorable  of  the  events  of  this  Council  were  the  discussions 
regarding  a  Declaration  of  Faith  and  a  Statement  of  Polity. 
In  Congregationalism  each  local  church  draws  up  its  own 
articles  of  belief  in  any  language  which  it  may  deem  proper, 
under  the  limitation,  of  course,  that  a  grossly  erroneous  or 
heretical  statement  would  subject  the  church  adopting  it  to 
withdrawal  of  fellowship  by  its  sister  churches.  But  though 
Congregationalism  thus  asserts  the  autonomy  of  the  local 
congregation,  its  councils  or  synods  have  never  hesitated 
to  formulate  its  general  doctrinal  position,  not  as  a  test  to 
be  imposed  on  particular  churches  by  external  authority, 
bu-t  as  a  testimony  as  to  what  the  belief  of  those  churches 
is.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  one  of  the  tasks  to  which 
the  attention  of  the  Council  had  been  directed  by  the  pre- 
liminary committees  was  the  adoption  of  a  statement  of 
the  faith  of  the  churches  whose  creation  it  was.  Such  a 
declaration  was  reported  to  the  Council,  therefore,  by  a 
committee  which  the  Preliminary  Conference  had  desig- 
nated for  the  purpose,  and  consisting  of  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph 
P.  Thompson,  Prof.  Edward  A.  Lawrence  of  what  is  now 
Hartford  Seminary,  and  Prof.  George  P.  Fisher  of  Yale 
Divinity  School.  This  suggested  form  was  referred  by 
the  Council  itself  to  a  new  committee,  which  elaborated  it, 
and,  in  particular,  introduced  a  paragraph  in  which  it  de- 
clared that  the  faith  of  the  Congregational  churches  was 
"  the  system  of  truths  which  is  commonly  known  among 
us  as  Calvinism." 


398  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS,  [Chaf.  x. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  prevaihng  doctrinal 
positions  of  Congregationalism  were  then  and  still  are  es- 
sentially Calvinistic.  But  the  sympathies  of  the  denomi- 
nation had  broadened  since  the  opening  of  the  century, 
and  many  who  were  earnest  Calvinists  themselves  felt  that 
it  would  be  a  mistake  to  tie  Congregational  fellowship  to 
any  party  shibboleth,  even  to  one  so  venerated  and  his- 
torically so  descriptive  of  Congregational  beliefs  as  the 
name  of  the  great  Genevan  theologian.  The  result  was 
that  the  proposed  paragraph  of  definition  was  earnestly 
debated,  till  it  became  evident  that,  if  pushed  to  a  vote,  it 
would  be  adopted  by  a  decided  majority  of  the  Council, 
and  as  evident  that  this  affirmation  that  Congregational 
doctrine  is  Calvinism  would  seem  unduly  divisive  and 
sectarian  to  a  respectable  minority.  Such  was  the  state  of 
affairs  in  the  Council  when  the  day  came  which  had  been 
set  apart  for  an  excursion  to  the  historic  scenes  of  Plym- 
outh. To  a  few  of  the  body  it  seemed  that  a  reunion  on 
a  spot  so  fragrant  with  the  memory  of  the  struggles  and 
sufferings  by  which  Congregationalism  was  planted  on 
American  soil  would  furnish  a  fitting  occasion  for  the 
presentation  of  a  modification  of  the  declaration  under 
discussion,  from  which  the  disputed  phrase  might  be 
omitted.  Such  a  form  was  hastily  prepared  by  Rev.  A. 
H.  Quint,  chairman  of  the  Business  Committee  of  the 
Council, — its  last  sentences  being  written,  with  a  hat  as 
a  tablet,  on  the  train  that  bore  the  Council  to  Plymouth. 
The  new  draught  was  chiefly  taken  from  the  forms  already 
before  the  Council ;  but  with  the  addition  of  a  new  opening 
paragraph,  a  new  expression  of  the  essential  unity  of  the 
whole  Church  of  Christ,  and  the  omission,  of  course,  of  the 
phrase  "  Calvinism."  Presented  to  the  Council  assembled 
on  Burial  Hill  at  Plymouth,  it  was  accepted,  subject  to 
slight  verbal  revision,  and  after  the  return  of  the  Council 


THE  "BURIAL  HILL  DECLARATION."  399 

to  Boston  was  adopted  by  a  rising  vote  without  opposition 
on  June  23,  1865. 

The  "  Burial  Hill  Declaration,"  which  thus  came  into 
existence,  is  the  only  statement  of  faith  formally  approved 
by  a  council  representative  of  American  Congregational- 
ism as  a  whole  since  the  Cambridge  Synod  of  1648.  It 
expresses  "our  adherence  to  the  faith  and  order  of  the 
apostoHc  and  primitive  churches  held  by  our  fathers,  and 
substantially  as  embodied  in  the  confessions  and  platforms 
which  our  synods  of  1648  and  1680  set  forth  or  reaffirmed." 
It  emphasizes  the  excellences  of  the  Congregational  polity  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  it  declares  that  "  knowing  that  we  are 
but  one  branch  of  Christ's  people,  while  adhering  to  our 
own  peculiar  faith  and  order,  we  extend  to  all  believers  the 
hand  of  Christian  fellowship,  upon  the  basis  of  those  great 
fundamental  truths  in  which  all  Christians  should  agree." 
It  recognizes  clearly  the  obligation  to  missionary  service 
incumbent  upon  the  Church  of  Christ.  Its  chief  defects 
are  its  indefiniteness  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  seven- 
teenth-century symbols  whereto  it  makes  reference  are 
to  be  considered  as  standards  of  present  faith,  its  merely 
general  treatment  of  such  doctrines  as  it  specifically  men- 
tions, and  its  rhetorical  form, — a  form  better  suited  to  an 
address  on  an  historic  occasion  than  to  a  creed  for  local 
and  permanent  use.  But  that  a  declaration  of  faith  should 
be  issued  at  all  by  a  voluntary  body  speaking  in  the  name 
of  the  Congregational  churches  of  America  was  a  fact  of 
great  significance,  and  one  which  showed  how  much  the 
sense  of  unity  in  the  denomination  had  been  growing  since 
the  period  of  indifference  to  polity  which  had  characterized 
the  early  part  of  the  century. 

The  "  National  Council"  of  1865  was  also  charged  with 
the  formulation  of  a  statement  of  polity ;  and,  at  the  in- 
stance of  the  Preliminary  Conference,  Rev.   Dr.   Leonard 


400  THE    CONGREGATIONALI^TS.  [Chap.  x. 

Bacon  and  Rev.  A.  H.  Quint  had  prepared  an  elaborate 
treatise  on  church  government,  similar  in  size  and  arrange- 
ment to  the  "  Cambridge  Platform,"  and  a  concise  epitome  ; 
both  of  which  were  duly  laid  before  the  National  Council. 
Here  the  proposed  formulae  encountered  considerable  dis- 
cussion ;  and  the  result  was  that  the  Council  itself  adopted 
a  brief  statement  of  principles,  drawn  up  by  Professor  Park 
of  Andover,  which  constitutes  so  succinct  and  so  admirable' 
an  epitome  of  modern  Congregationalism  that  it  may  well 
be  quoted  in  full : 

Resolved,  That  this  Council  recognizes  as  distinctive  of  the  Congregational 
polity — 

First,  The  principle  that  the  local  or  Congregational  church  derives  its 
power  and  authority  directly  from  Christ,  and  is  not  subject  to  any  ecclesias- 
tical government  exterior  or  superior  to  itself. 

Second,  That  every  local  or  Congregational  church  is  bound  to  observe  the 
duties  of  mutual  respect  and  charity  which  are  included  in  the  communion 
of  churches  one  with  another ;  and  that  every  church  which  refuses  to  give 
an  account  of  its  proceedings,  when  kindly  and  orderly  desired  to  do  so  by 
neighboring  churches,  violates  the  law  of  Christ. 

Third,  That  the  ministry  of  the  gospel  by  members  of  the  churches  who 
have  been  duly  called  and  set  apart  to  that  work  implies  in  itself  no  power 
of  government,  and  that  ministers  of  the  gospel  not  elected  to  office  in  any 
church  are  not  a  hierarchy,  nor  are  they  invested  with  any  official  power  in 
or  over  the  churches. 

The  Council  also  referred  the  elaborate  statements  of 
polity  that  had  been  laid  before  it  to  a  committee  of  twenty- 
nine,  widely  representati\-e  of  Congregationalism  geograph- 
ically, to  serve  as  a  basis  for  the  preparation  of  a  more 
lengthy  treatise  on  polity,  which  the  committee  might  re- 
port directly  to  the  churches.  The  result  was  the  publi- 
cation in  1872  of  the  so-called  "  Boston  Platform," — a  care- 
ful exposition  of  modern  Congregational  usage,  in  length 
somewhat  resembling  the  "  Cambridge  Platform  "  of  1648. 
But  though  it  bore  the  approving  signatures  of  the  twenty- 
six  survi\-ing  members  of  the  committee,  and  was  in  e\'erv 


A   STATEMENT  OF  POLITY.  40I 

way  worthy  of  them,  its  very  length  and  elaborateness  have 
prevented  it  from  coming  into  any  extensive  use. 

The  Council  also  discussed  with  much  thoroughness  the 
work  of  evangelization  in  the  West  and  South,  church- 
building,  ministerial  education,  and  other  problems  of  the 
advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  it  had  no  authority  to  bind  the  action  of  individual 
churches,  and  that  it  was  not  a  judicial  body ;  but  its 
influence  was  none  the  less  widely  felt,  and  it  contribu- 
ted none  the  less  positively  to  Congregational  advance- 
ment. 

The  missionary  work  at  the  South,  which  was  one  of 
the  objects  of  consideration  at  this  National  Council  of 
1865,  and  for  which  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  and 
the  collapse  of  the  rebellion  had  opened  a  door,  had  been 
carried  on  for  a  number. of  years  under  great  difficulties 
by  a  Congregational  society  which  was  now  coming  into 
prominence  and  much  enlarged  activity, — the  "  American 
Missionary  Association."  This  association  grew  out  of 
several  little  missionary  bodies  of  antislavery  sympathies, 
which  had  felt  that  the  older  missionary  societies  were 
not  sufficiently  outspoken  in  their  denunciation  of  human 
bondage.  The  oldest  of  these  centers  of  impulse  was  the 
"  Amistad  Committee," — an  association  formed  in  New 
York  to  provide  legal  defense  and  religious  instruction  for 
the  captured  cargo  of  the  slave-schooner  "  Amistad,"  seized 
in  August,  1839,  and  brought  to  New  London,  Conn.  As 
a  result  of  the  labors  of  this  committee  the  "Amistad  "  cap- 
tives were  declared  free  by  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  were  given  religious  teaching  at  Farmington,  Conn., 
and  were  sent  to  Kaw  Mendi,  near  Sierra  Leone,  in  Africa. 
In  order  to  perpetuate  and  extend  the  religious  impression 
made  upon  these  poor  Africans,  a  little  association  was 
organized   at   Hartford,   Conn., — the  "  Union   Missionary 


402  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS,  [Chap.  x. 

Society," — under  the  auspices  of  which  three  missionaries 
were  sent  out  with  the  returning  captives,  who  carried  on 
work  with  some  success  in  western  Africa.  A  third  little 
center  for  aid  to  the  negro  race  was  the  "  Committee  for 
West  India  Missions,"  formed  in  1844  to  provide  the  sup- 
port of.  Rev.  David  S.  Ingraham,  an  Oberlin  graduate,  and 
those  who  were  associated  with  him  in  missionary  labors 
among  the  freedmen  of  Jamaica.  Still  another  of  these 
minor  organizations  was  the  "  Western  Evangelical  Mis- 
sionary Society," — a  body  formed  by  the  association  of 
the  churches  in  the  Western  Reserve  of  Ohio  in  1843,  ^or 
work  among  the  Indians. 

The  existence  of  these  unions  led  to  the  thought  of  a 
larger  organization,  of  similar  antislavery  tendencies,  which 
could  do  a  like  work  on  an  extended  scale.  The  result 
was  the  formation  of  the  "  American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion "  at  Albany  on  September  3,  1846,  into  which  the 
older  minor  organizations  speedily  merged  themselves  or 
their  work.  The  "American  Missionary  Association  "  was 
at  first  almost  as  much  a  foreign  as  a  home  missionary  so- 
ciety. By  1854  it  had  71  missionaries  at  various  stations 
in  Africa,  Jamaica,  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  Siam,  and  Egypt, 
as  well  as  among  the  American  Indians  and  the  negro 
fugitives  who  had  found  a  refuge  in  Canada.  At  the  same 
time  it  entered  heartily  into  the  work  of  upbuilding  anti- 
slavery  churches  at  home,  employing  by  i860  as  many  as 
112  home  missionaries,  chiefly  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Michigan, 
Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  and  Kansas.  A  few 
of  its  missionaries  were  laboring  among  the  whites  of  the 
slave  States,  especially  in  Kentucky,  where  they  laid  the 
foundations  of  Berea  College,  and  in  North  Carolina,  en- 
countering everywhere  much  popular  opposition ;  but  as 
long  as  slavery  continued  the  negroes  of  the  South  were 
practically  inaccessible,  and  the  impression  made  by  the 


''AMERICAN  MISSIONARY  ASSOCIATION."  403 

"American  Missionary  Association"  upon  that  region  was 
almost  inappreciable. 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  however,  the  whole  situa- 
tion was  changed ;  and  the  Congregational  churches  found 
ia  the  "American  Missionary  Association "  the  agency 
through  which  to  labor  for  the  newly  emancipated  colored 
population.  With  the  entrance  of  the  Union  armies  into 
the  South  the  society  began,  on  September  17,  1861,  at 
Hampton,  Va.,  the  first  day-school  for  the  freedmen ;  and 
as  the  war  went  on  other  schools  were  planted  at  Norfolk, 
Va.,  Washington,  D.  C,  Cario,  111.,  Newbern,  N.  C,  and  in 
many  other  places,  the  teachers  and  missionaries  following 
closely  in  the  wake  of  the  armies.  By  1864  the  society  had 
250  laborers  among  the  negroes.  At  the  close  of  the  war 
the  whole  Southern  field  was  thrown  open  to  its  opera- 
tions, and  the  "American  Missionary  Association  "  received 
the  hearty  commendation  of  the  National  Council  of  1865, 
which  advised  the  churches  to  raise  $250,000  for  immedi- 
ate work  among  the  colored  population.  As  a  result,  the 
income  of  the  society,  which  had  amounted  to  $47,062  in 
the  year  ending  in  1862,  rose  to  $253,045  in  that  closing 
in  1866.  By  1867  the  society  had  528  missionaries  and 
teachers  in  its  employ. 

The  need  of  the  negro  seemed  to  be  general  training  of 
mind  and  body  almost  as  imperatively  as  religious  instruc- 
tion, and  the  "American  Missionary  Association"  there- 
fore, from  its  commencement  of  labor  among  the  freed- 
men, aimed  at  the  establishment  of  permanent  educational 
institutions  open  to  students  without  distinction  of  race. 
Largely  through  the  efforts  of  this  society,  the  Hampton 
Normal  and  Agricultural  Institute,  at  Hampton,  Va.,  was 
opened  in  1868, — a  training-school  which  has  done  a  noble 
work  for  the  freedmen  and  the  Indians,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  General  S.  C.  Armstrong,  its  principal  from  its  be- 


404  THE    CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

ginning  to  his  death,  in  1893.  Atlanta  University,  at 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  incorporated  in  1867  and  opened  two  years 
later,  is  another  educational  center  in  which  Congregation- 
alists,  and  their  "  American  Missionary  Association,"  have 
had  a  large  share.  A  similar  interest  has  been  felt  in 
Howard  University,  founded  at  Washington,  D.C.,  in  1867, 
where  the  Theological  Department  is  still  under  the  care 
of  this  society.  These  institutions  are  controlled  as  a 
whole  by  their  own  trustees.  More  directly  under  the 
charge  of  this  agency  of  the  Congregational  churches  are : 
Fisk  University  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  opened  as  a  school  in 
1866  and  incorporated  as  an  institution  for  higher  educa- 
tion in  1867;  Talladega  College,  situated  in  the  town  of 
the  same  name  in  Alabama,  opened  in  1867  and  chartered 
two  years  later ;  Tougaloo  University,  named  from  the 
Mississippi  village  of  its  location,  and  begun  in  1869,  still 
rather  of  the  grade  of  a  normal  school  than  what  its  title 
shows  that  it  aims  to  be ;  Straight  University,  begun  at 
New  Orleans  in  1869;  and  Tillotson  Collegiate  and  Nor- 
mal Institute  at  Austin,  Texas,  chartered  in  1876.  In 
these  institutions  manual  and  industrial  instruction  accom- 
panies a  thorough  intellectual  training.  Theological  courses 
are  also  given  in  Fisk,  Talladega,  and  Straight,  as  well  as 
at  Howard,  Universities.  And  besides  these  institutions 
of  a  higher  grade,  the  "American  Missionary  Association  " 
has  founded  numerous  schools  of  primary  and  secondary 
education,  so  that  the  schools  of  all  grades  now  under  its 
charge  in  the  South  number  seventy-eight. 

While  the  "American  Missionary  Association"  uas 
thus  busily  engaged  in  the  work  of  education  at  the 
South,  it  by  no  means  neglected  the  planting  of  churches. 
Its  first  church  among  the  colored  people  was  organized 
at  Charleston,  S.  C,  on  April  14,  1867;  and  the  second 
followed  at  Atlanta,  Ga.,  in  May  of  the  same  year.      Ik- 


''AMERICAN  MISSIONARY  ASSOCIATION.''  405 

sides  a  considerable  number  of  congregations  that  have 
become  self-supporting,  the  society  now  maintains  152 
churches  in  the  South,  and  by  its  aid  Congregationalism  is 
now  represented  in  every  Southern  State.  These  Con- 
gregational workers  have  cared  more  for  character  than 
numbers,  and  it  may  be  that  the  negro  can  best  be  reached 
in  large  masses  by  polities  demanding  less  individual  in- 
telligence than  that  of  New  England ;  but  though  these 
Southern  churches  of  the  Congregational  fellowship  are 
still  comparatively  few,  they  represent  much  self-denying 
labor,  they  are  a  credit  to  the  Congregational  name,  and 
they  and  the  educational  institutions  which  Congregation- 
alism has  planted  are  of  great  value  in  holding  up  a  high 
ideal  before  the  colored  people  and  in  offering  them  the 
means  for  its  attainment.  They  have  sent  out  spiritual 
quickening  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  their  nominal  fellow- 
ship. They  have  stood  with  uncompromising  firmness  for 
the  principle  that  no  distinctions  of  race  or  color  should  be 
made  in  educational  privileges  or  ecclesiastical  fellowship. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  just  to  remark  that  so  thoroughly 
has  the  "American  Missionary  Association  "  been  the  his- 
toric representative  of  the  antislavery  spirit  of  the  North 
that  the  "Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society"  has 
found  it  advantageous,  without  abandoning  the  principle 
that  no  man  should  be  denied  fellowship  in  a  Congrega- 
tional church  on  account  of  color  or  race,  to  introduce  its 
laborers,  and  to  a  limited  extent  to  establish  churches,  in 
the  Southern  field. 

The  "American  Missionary  Association"  was  founded 
to  labor  among  the  Indians  and  in  the  foreign  field  as  well 
as  for  the  negro  race.  Its  Indian  missions  were  for  a  time 
intermitted  during  the  exacting  period  of  rapid  increase  in 
its  Southern  work  consequent  upon  the  war ;  but  they  were 
resumed  in   1870,  and  these  labors  were  much  increased 


406  THE    C0NGREGATI0NAL7STS.  [Chap.  x. 

when  the  American  Board  transferred  its  missions  among 
the  Indians  to  this  society  as  a  result  of  negotiations  begun 
in  1874  and  completed  in  1882.  These  missions  are  still 
maintained,  and  have  been  extended  to  the  Eskimos  of 
Alaska.  They  now  report  92  laborers,  12  churches,  and 
12  schools.  As  part  of  the  same  agreement  with  the 
American  Board,  the  *'  American  Missionary  Association  " 
assigned  its  foreign  work  to  the  care  of  the  older  society. 

Two  other  missionary  efforts  have  marked  the  endeavors 
of  the  "  American  Missionary  Association  "  to  reach  the 
neglected  races  of  the  United  States, — its  work  among  the 
Chinese  and  among  the  mountain  whites.  Attempts  at 
the  Christianization  of  Chinese  immigrants  in  California 
were  begun  by  this  society  as  early  as  1852,  but  it  was 
not  till  1870  that  they  were  entered  upon  with  system  or 
on  an  extended  scale.  The  society  now  employs  40  mis- 
sionaries in  this  labor,  and  with  results  which  show  that 
the  effort  has  been  fairly  successful.  The  work  among 
the  neglected  white  inhabitants  of  the  mountains  of  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  and  North  Carolina  was  begun  in  a  very 
feeble  way  as  early  as  1857 ;  but  in  1882  it  was  taken  up 
in  earnest  by  the  society,  and  has  proved  one  of  the  most 
interesting  fields  of  missionary  activity  to  which  the  atten- 
tion of  Congregationalists  has  been  directed. 

An  illustration  of  the  missionary  spirit  of  the  Congrega- 
tional churches,  though  not  peculiar  to  them,  is  the  grow- 
ing tendency  toward  the  organization  of  Christian  women 
for  the  general  advancement  of  missionary  enterprises,  and 
especially  for  reaching  their  heathen  sisters  with  the  gospel 
through  laborers  of  their  own  sex.  In  January,  1868,  as 
a  result  of  some  previous  negotiation,  about  forty  women 
of  the  vicinity  of  Boston  organized  the  "  Woman's  Board 
of  Missions,"  which  speedily  became  auxiliary  to  the 
American  Board,  its  purpose,  as  expressed  in  its  charter 


WOMAN'S  MISSIOiVARY  SOCIETIES.  40J 

granted  by  the  Massachusetts  legislature  in  1869,  being 
"  to  collect,  receive,  and  hold  money  ...  to  be  exclusively 
expended  in  sending  out  and  supporting  such  unmarried 
females  as  the  Prudential  Committee  of  the  American 
Board  .  .  .  shall,  under  the  recommendation  of  the  Board 
of  Directors  of  this  corporation,  designate  and  appoint  as 
assistant  missionaries  for  the  Christianization  of  women  in 
foreign  lands ;  and  for  the  support  of  such  other  female 
helpers  in  the  missionary  work,  as  may  be  selected  by  the 
Board  of  Directors,  with  the  approbation  of  the  said  Pru- 
dential Committee." 

The  example  of  this  society  led  to  the  organization  at 
Chicago,  in  October,  1868,  of  the  "Woman's  Board  of 
Missions  of  the  Interior,"  and  of  the  "Woman's  Board  of 
Missions  for  the  Pacific,"  at  Santa  Cruz,  Cal.,  in  1873,  to 
do  a  similar  work  in  the  regions  of  which  they  are  the 
natural  centers.  These  societies  have  planted  auxiliaries 
throughout  all  the  portion  of  the  United  States  occupied 
in  force  by  the  Congregational  churches,  and  the  result 
has  been  not  only  a  notable  increase  in  missionary  labors 
and  contributions,  but  the  extensive  banding  together  of 
the  young  people  of  these  churches  for  missionary  instruc- 
tion and  effort.  So  successful  has  the  movement  been 
that  similar  organizations  of  women  have  been  formed  in 
forty-one  States  and  Territories  in  aid  of  the  several  home 
missionary  societies  of  Congregationalism,  though  these 
State  bodies  are  not  gathered  in  any  national  association. 

The  youngest  of  Congregational  missionary  organiza- 
tions is  the  "New  West  Education  Commission," — a  so- 
ciety formed  at  Chicago  and  incorporated  in  1879,  having 
as  its  aim  "  the  promotion  of  Christian  civilization  in  Utah 
and  adjacent  States  and  Territories,  by  the  education  of 
the  children  and  youth  under  Christian  teachers,  and  by  the 
use  of  such  other  kindred  agencies  as  may  at  any  time  be 


408  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chai\  x. 

deemed  wise."  By  1892  this  commission  had  28  schools 
under  its  charge,  employing  68  teachers,  and  instructing 
2812  pupils;  but  its  separate  existence  ceased  in  1893,  as 
has  already  been  mentioned,  though  its  work  continues,  it 
having  been  merged  at  that  time  in  the  "American  Edu- 
cation Society." 

The  evident  advantages  which  had  flowed  from  the 
National  Council  of  1865,  the  impulse  which  it  had  given 
to  Congregational  advance,  and  the  general  wdsdom  of  its 
actions,  led  to  the  widespread  feeling  throughout  the  Con- 
gregational body  that  such  an  assembly,  without  judicial 
authority  but  representative  of  the  denomination  as  a  whole 
and  able  therefore  to  voice  its  sentiments  and  discuss  its 
needs,  should  be  a  permanent  instead  of  an  occasional 
feature  of  Congregational  religious  life.  To  a  few,  such  a 
regularly  recurring  assembly  seemed  a  possible  menace  to 
ecclesiastical  independence ;  but  the  majority  of  the  de- 
nomination were  prepared  to  see  in  a  permanent  National 
Council  only  a  fuller  expression  of  that  fellowship  of  the 
churches  which  Congregationalism  has  always  regarded 
as  one  of  the  peculiar  merits  of  its  polity,  and  which  the 
voluntary  system  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  proved 
itself  as  well  able  to  foster  as  the  State  supervision  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  This  feeling  found  a  voice  through 
a  convention  to  which  the  approach  of  the  two  hundred 
and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  the  "  Mayflower  " 
Pilgrims  at  Plymouth  gave  occasion. 

In  order  to  devise  a  proper  celebration  of  that  impor- 
tant event  in  Congregational  history,  the  Church  of  the 
Pilgrimage  at  Plymouth  asked  its  sister-churches  to  send 
delegates  to  New  York  to  consult  regarding  the  method 
of  commemoration.  As  a  result  of  this  invitation  a  meet- 
ing was  held  on  March  2,  1870,  and  a  committee  to  take 
suitable  action  was  appointed,  including  such  champions 


THE    FRIENNIAL   NATIONAL    COUNCIL.  409 

of  Congregationalism  as  Rev.  Drs.  Dexter,  Quint,  and 
Patton.  At  their  instance,  a  "  Pilgrim  Memorial  Con- 
vention," to  which  representatives  of  all  Congregational 
churches  in  the  United  States  were  bidden,  assembled  at 
Chicago  on  the  27th  of  the  following  April.  In  this  con- 
vention the  impulse  toward  a  permanent  National  Council 
was  strongly  manifested,  and  it  therefore  voted  to  "  recom- 
mend to  the  Congregational  State  Conferences  and  Asso- 
ciations, and  to  other  local  bodies,  to  unite  in  measures  for 
instituting  on  the  principle  of  fellowship,  excluding  eccle- 
siastical authority,  a  permanent  National  Conference." 

Thus  invited,  the  General  Conference  of  Ohio  appointed 
a  committee,  with  Rev.  Dr.  A.  H.  Ross  as  its  chairman,  to 
correspond  with  other  State  bodies  and  perfect  the  plan. 
The  suggestion  met  with  general  approval, — the  steps  were 
the  same  which  had  led  to  the  National  Council  of  1865, 
— the  various  State  organizations  appointed  committees, 
which,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  General  Association  of 
New  York,  met  as  a  preliminary  convention  at  Boston  on 
December  21,  1870.  To  this  preliminary  convention  it 
appeared  "  clearly  to  be  the  voice  of  the  churches,  that  a 
National  Council  of  the  Congregational  churches  of  the 
United  States  be  organized."  It  therefore  invited  them 
to  meet  by  delegates  chosen  substantially  like  the  repre- 
sentatives to  the  Council  of  1865,  and  intrusted  the  draft- 
ing of  a  constitution  for  submission  to  the  Council-to-be, 
together  with  the  designation  of  the  time  and  place  of 
meeting,  to  a  committee  of  which  Rev.  Dr.  Quint  was 
chairman. 

As  a  result  of  all  these  proceedings,  a  National  Council 
assembled  at  Oberlin,  O.,  on  November  15,  187 1,  with  an 
attendance  of  276  delegates  representative  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches  of  twenty-five  States  and  Territories, 
and  adopted  a  constitution  organizing  a  permanent  triennial 


4IO  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS,  [Chap.  x. 

body.     The  more  important  sections  of  this  document  are 
as  follows : 

The  Congregational  churches  of  the  United  States,  by  elders  and  mes- 
sengers assembled,  do  now  associate  themselves  in  National  Council : 

To  express  and  foster  their  substantial  unity  in  doctrine,  polity,  and  work ; 
and 

To  consult  upon  the  common  interests  of  all  the  churches,  their  duties  in 
the  work  of  evangelization,  the  united  development  of  their  resources,  and 
their  relations  to  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 

They  agree  in  belief  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  the  sufficient  and  only 
infallible  rule  of  religious  faith  and  practice ;  their  interpretation  thereof  being 
in  substantial  accordance  with  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith,  com- 
monly called  evangelical,  held  in  our  churches  from  the  early  times,  and  suf- 
ficiently set  forth  by  former  General  Councils. 

They  agree  in  the  belief  that  the  right  of  government  resides  in  local 
churches,  or  congregations  of  believers,  who  are  responsible  directly  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  One  Head  of  the  church  universal  and  of  all  particular 
churches ;  but  that  all  churches,  being  in  communion  one  with  another  as 
parts  of  Christ's  catholic  church,  have  mutual  duties  subsisting  in  the  obliga- 
tions of  fellowship. 

The  churches,  therefore,  while  establishing  this  National  Council  for  the 
furtherance  of  the  common  interests  and  work  of  all  the  churches,  do  main- 
tain the  Scriptural  and  inalienable  right  of  each  church  to  self-government 
and  administration ;  and  this  National  Council  shall  never  exercise  legislative 
or  judicial  authority,  nor  consent  to  act  as  a  council  of  reference. 

And  for  the  convenience  of  orderly  consultation,  they  establish  the  follow- 
ing Rules : 

I.  Sessions. — The  churches  will  meet  in  National  Council  every  third  year. 
They  shall  also  be  convened  in  special  session  whenever  any  five  of  the  gen- 
eral State  organizations  shall  so  request. 

n.  Representation. — The  churches  shall  be  represented,  at  each  session, 
by  delegates,  either  ministers  or  laymen,  appointed  in  number  and  manner 
as  follows : 

1.  The  churches,  assembled  in  their  local  organizations,  appoint  one  dele- 
gate for  every  ten  churches  in  their  respective  organizations,  and  one  for  a 
fraction  of  ten  greater  than  one  half,  it  being  understood  that  whenever  the 
churches  of  any  State  are  directly  united  in  a  general  organization,  they  may, 
at  their  option,  appoint  the  delegates  in  such  a  body,  instead  of  in  local  or- 
ganizations, but  in  the  above  ratio  of  churches  so  united. 

2.  In  addition  to  the  above,  the  churches  united  in  State  organization  ap- 
point by  such  body  one  delegate,  and  one  for  each  ten  thousand  communi- 
cants in  their  fellowship,  and  one  for  a  major  fraction  thereof: — 

3.  It  being  recommended  that  the  number  of  delegates  be,  in  all  cases, 
divided  between  ministers  and  laymen,  as  nearly  equally  as  is  practicable. 


THE    llilENNIAL   NATIONAL    COUNCIL.  41  I 

4.  Such  Congregational  general  societies  for  Christian  work,  and  the  fac- 
ulties  of  such  theological  seminaries,  as  may  be  recognized  by  this  Council, 
may  be  represented  by  one  delegate  each,  such  representatives  having  the 
right  of  discussion  only. 

At  the  same  time  the  National  Council  formally  ex- 
pressed the  desire  of  the  Congregational  churches  to  pro- 
mote the  unity  of  the  whole  Church  of  Christ,  affirming 
that: 

To  us,  as  to  our  brethren,  "  There  is  one  body  and  one  spirit,  even  as  we 
are  called  in  one  hope  of  our  calling." 

As  little  as  did  our  fathers  in  their  day,  do  we  in  ours,  make  a  pretension 
to  be  the  only  churches  of  Christ.  We  find  ourselves  consulting  and  acting 
together  under  the  distinctive  name  of  Congregationalists,  because,  in  the 
present  condition  of  our  common  Christianity,  we  have  felt  ourselves  called 
to  ascertain  and  do  our  own  appropriate  part  of  the  work  of  Christ's  church 
among  men. 

We  especially  desire,  in  prosecuting  the  common  work  of  evangelizing  our 
own  land  and  the  world,  to  observe  the  common  and  sacred  law,  that  in  the 
wide  field  of  the  world's  evangelization,  we  do  our  work  in  friendly  coopera- 
tion with  all  those  who  love  and  serve  our  common  Lord. 

Possibly  the  doctrinal  statements  of  the  constitution  are 
more  important  for  what  is  there  left  unsaid  than  for  what 
is  distinctly  affirmed.  The  expression  "  commonly  called 
evangelical,"  taken  in  connection  with  the  broad  offer  of 
cooperation  with  those  who  are  engaged  in  the  service  of 
the  common  Master,  was  understood  at  the  Council,  and 
has  since  generally  been  held,  to  extend  a  welcome  to  those 
of  Arminian  beliefs,  and  to  be  but  a  further  illustration  of 
the  widening  sympathy  which  led  to  the  omission  of  the 
word  "  Calvinism  "  from  the  Declaration  of  Faith  adopted 
in  1865. 

The  National  Council  has  enjoyed  the  good-will  of  the 
Congregational  churches  as  a  whole  since  its  beginning. 
Attempts  to  prevent  its  regular  recurrence  and  to  limit  its 
expression  of  opinion  by  vote  were  indeed  made  by  the 
General  Associations  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey  through 


412  THE    COKGREGATIOXA LISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

fear  lest  it  become  dangerous  to  Congregational  liberty ; 
but  no  such  anxieties  have  been  entertained  by  the  churches 
in  general,  nor  have  the  protesting  Associations  taken  any 
permanent  attitude  of  opposition.  It  has  gained  the  hearty 
support  of  the  whole  Congregational  body ;  and,  to  Con- 
gregational thinking,  it  has  solved  the  problem  of  securing 
the  advantages  of  discussion,  cooperation,  and  expression 
of  opinion,  on  a  national  scale,  without  the  interference 
with  local  liberty,  the  imposition  of  tests  by  majority  vote, 
and  the  sacrifice  of  the  rights  of  the  individual  church,  in- 
evitable in  any  system  of  judicial  assemblies.  No  church, 
or  body  of  churches,  is  bound  to  follow  the  recommen- 
dations of  the  National  Council;  but  its  discussions  and 
opinions  have  always  commanded  respect  and  have  had 
constantly  increasing  influence  over  the  churches  and  the 
missionary  societies  through  which  their  benevolences  are 
administered.  The  National  Council  has  led  to  more  per- 
fect adjustment  of  the  relations  of  the  various  Congrega- 
tional missionary  organizations ;  it  has  relieved  friction  in 
their  work  ;  it  has  set  in  motion  impulses  which  have  made 
some  of  them  more  directly  representative  of  the  churches 
in  their  management,  and  which  have  brought  about  at 
least  the  beginnings  of  consolidation ;  it  has  systematized 
the  statistics  of  the  churches ;  and  has  undertaken  the  re- 
lief of  disabled  ministers,  and  of  the  destitute  widows  and 
orphans  of  those  who  die  in  the  service  of  the  churches. 
It  has  been  efficient  in  promoting  that  hearty  sympathy 
and  cordial  good-fellowship  between  the  Congregational 
churches  of  all  sections  of  the  country  which  has  been  a 
growing  feature  of  their  life  since  the  Albany  Convention 
of  1852. 

Probably  the  most  noteworthy  single  effort  of  the  Na- 
tional Council,  however,  has  been  the  gift  to  the  Congre- 
gational churches  of  a  new  Confession  of  Faith,  express- 


THE   "CREED    OF  1SS3."  413 

ive  of  the  present  theologic  position  of  the  denomination. 
Though  generally  approved  by  Congregationalists  as  a 
fitting  presentation  of  the  sentiments  of  the  time  and  place 
and  of  the  broad  principles  of  which  the  denomination  is 
the  representative,  the  "  Burial  Hill  Declaration"  was  too 
rhetorical  in  form  and  too  indefinite  in  statement  as  to 
particular  doctrines,  as  well  as  too  sweeping  in  its  approval 
of  seventeenth-century  formulations  of  belief,  to  be  satis- 
factory as  a  creed  for  local  churches  or  as  an  exposition 
of  the  faith  of  the  Congregational  body  as  a  whole.  The 
desire  for  a  new  and  simple  expression  of  faith  was  mani- 
fested at  the  National  Council  in  187 1  ;  but  the  impulse 
that  led  directly  to  its  preparation  went  out  from  the  Ohio 
Association,  which,  having  considered  the  matter  at  its 
sessions  of  1879  and  1880,  laid  before  the  Council  in  the 
latter  year  the  question  of  the  issue  of  a  "  formula  that 
shall  not  be  mainly  a  reaffirmation  of  former  confessions, 
but  that  shall  state  in  precise  terms  in  our  living  tongue 
the  doctrines  that  we  hold  to-day."  At  the  same  session 
of  the  National  Council,  similar  requests  were  presented 
from  the  General  Conference  of  Minnesota,  and  a  Confer- 
ence in  Tennessee.  Thus  approached,  the  National  Coun- 
cil on  November  15,  1880,  appointed  a  committee  of  seven 
to  select  twenty-five  Commissioners,  "  representing  differ- 
ent shades  of  thought,"  and  widely  distributed  geograph- 
ically, to  prepare  a  creed.  The  Council  left  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Commission  free  to  adopt  their  own  methods 
of  proceeding,  only  stipulating,  "  that  the  result  of  their 
labors,  when  complete,  be  reported — not  to  this  Council, 
but  to  the  churches  and  to  the  world  through  the  public 
press — to  carry  such  weight  of  authority  as  the  character 
of  the  Commission  and  the  intrinsic  merit  of  their  exposi- 
tion of  truth  may  command." 

The  Commission  thus  selected  was  probably  as  thoroughly 


414  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

representative  of  Congregationalism  as  any  twenty-five 
ministers  and  theological  instructors  who  could  have  been 
named ;  and  the  result  of  their  careful  deliberations  was 
the  publication,  on  December  19,  1883,  of  what  has  been 
usually  called  the  "  Creed  of  1883."  The  confession  bore 
the  approving  signatures  of  twenty-two  of  the  twenty- five 
commissioners.  Three  refused  their  names ;  two  of  them 
deeming  the  symbol  an  inadequate  expression  of  their 
views,  and  the  third  on  account  of  absence  from  the  meet- 
ings of  the  Commission.  But  though  the  "  Creed  of  1 883  " 
still  has  its  occasional  critics,  it  is,  what  the  Commission 
was  directed  to  make  it,  a  simple,  compact  statement,  in 
modern  language,  of  the  present  beliefs  of  the  Congrega- 
tional churches.  It  is  not  binding  on  the  churches  any 
further  than  they  choose  to  adopt  it  as  a  local  expression 
of  faith ;  but  its  use  has  been  steadily  increasing ;  and  it 
gives  the  denomination,  what  no  other  considerable  re- 
ligious body  in  America  possesses, — a  widely  recognized 
creed,  of  modern  composition,  and  expressing  a  fair  con- 
sensus of  the  present  belief  of  the  communion  whose  faith 
it  sets  forth. 

The  story  of  modern  American  Congregationalism  is 
thus  one  of  increasing  denominational  strength,  of  grow- 
ing conviction  of  its  own  mission,  and  of  more  manifest 
fellowship  and  cooperation  between  its  churches.  At  the 
same  time  this  development  has  been  accompanied  by  a 
hearty  spirit  of  brotherhood  toward  other  bodies  which 
bear  the  Christian  name  and  hold  similar  evangelical  doc- 
trines. 

The  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  have  brought  the  Congre- 
gational churches,  as  they  have  all  other  American  relig- 
ious bodies,  face  to  face  with  much  that  is  novel  in  doctrine 
and  method  ;  and  the  new  tendencies  of  theologic  discus- 
sion and  of  the  practical  application  of  the  gospel  to  men 


RECENT    TENDENCIES.  415 

have  been  viewed  with  as  much  interest  by  Congregation- 
alists  as  by  any  class  of  American  Christians.  While  the 
presentations  of  Christian  truth  which  were  characteristic 
of  the  first  three  quarters  of  this  century  have  not  been 
abandoned,  the  emphasis  in  doctrinal  discussion  of  late 
years  has  shifted  from  questions  of  the  atonement,  of  abil- 
ity, and  of  sin,  such  as  held  a  chief  place  in  the  debates 
of  that  period,  to  problems  of  the  nature  of  inspiration,  of 
Old  Testament  criticism,  and  of  the  future  state.  In  a 
similar  way  the  burden  of  discussion  in  regard  to  meth- 
ods of  Christian  activity  has  to  some  extent  come  to  rest 
on  what  are  called  the  larger  interests  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ,  the  broad  application  of  the  gospel  to  the  social 
condition  of  mankind,  and  much  interest  has  been  devel- 
oped in  "  Christian  Sociology."  This  alteration  of  em- 
phasis is  not  peculiar  to  Congregationalism,  it  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  age. 

Naturally  this  change  in  the  topics  of  debate,  especially 
in  regard  to  doctrine,  while  not  substantially  altering  the 
views  or  the  teachings  of  the  denomination  as  a  whole,  has 
been  productive  of  considerable  controversy  and  has  given 
rise  in  places  to  marked  divergencies  of  opinion,  without 
seriously  threatening  the  interruption  of  Congregational  fel- 
lowship, or  the  organic  unity  of  the  denomination.  While 
the  great  body  of  the  Congregational  churches  have  not 
entered  into  the  debate,  two  wings  have  developed,  espe- 
cially in  eastern  Massachusetts,  which  for  want  of  better 
titles  may  be  designated  as  progressive  and  conservative. 
The  most  marked  exhibition  of  this  divergence  has  been 
in  regard  to  Andover  Seminary, — an  institution  which  has 
been  more  affected  by  the  change  of  interest  in  the  topics 
of  doctrinal  discussion  and  more  responsive  to  the  thought 
of  European  theologians  than  any  other  Congregational 
seat  of  learning.      As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the 


41 6  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

orthodoxy  of  its  teachers  is  tested  by  a  creed  prepared  by 
the  "  Associate  Founders  "  and  approved  by  the  "  Found- 
ers "  before  the  opening  of  the  Seminary ;  and  the  apphca- 
tion  of  this  test  Hes  in  the  hands  of  the  Board  of  Visitors. 
Though  substantial  departure  from  their  creed  was  denied 
by  the  Andover  faculty,  it  seemed  to  certain  of  the  alumni 
of  the  institution  that  such  essential  modification  of  the 
historic  standard  had  actually  taken  place ;  and  at  a  meet- 
ing on  December  28,  1885,  they  resolved  to  make  com- 
plaint to  the  Board  of  Visitors  against  the  published  views 
of  several  of  the  professors.  The  result  was  a  formal  trial 
of  charges  involving  five  instructors  before  the  Visitors 
at  Boston,  beginning  just  a  year  later,  and  the  declaration 
by  the  Visitors  on  June  16,  1887,  that  Prof.  E.  C.  Smyth, 
the  president  of  the  faculty,  was  removed  from  his  chair 
of  instruction.  From  this  decision  appeal  was  taken,  as 
permitted  by  the  terms  of  the  Andover  foundation,  to  the 
Massachusetts  Supreme  Court.  After  elaborate  and  com- 
plicated judicial  proceedings,  that  tribunal,  on  October 
28,  1 89 1,  set  aside  the  finding  of  the  Visitors  on  technical 
grounds,  without  passing  on  the  questions  involved  in  the 
controversy.  INIotion  for  a  new  trial  before  the  Visitors 
having  been  made,  and  a  further  hearing  of  the  parties 
involved  having  been  held,  that  Board,  on  September  6, 
1892,  dismissed  the  complaint,  now  nearly  seven  years  old, 
holding  that  further  procedure  on  charges  of  such  antiquity 
was  not  Hkely  to  be  productive  of  good,  but  "  without 
thereby  expressing  any  opinion  upon  the  merits  of  the 
case." 

Nearly  parallel  with  this  discussion,  but  somewhat  dif- 
ferent in  the  questions  involved  and  to  some  extent  unlike 
in  the  parties  to  the  controversy,  a  debate  concerning  the 
policy  of  the  American  Board  in  making  missionary  ap- 
pointments  has   run  its   course.      The    doctrinal    ferment, 


THE  ANDOVER    CONTROVERSY.  417 

out  of  which  the  Andover  trials  were  to  grow,  had  been 
felt  for  several  years  previous  to  the  presentation  of  the 
complaints  against  the  Andover  faculty ;  and  certain  feat- 
ures of  what  was  called  by  its  friends  the  "  new  theology  " 
excited  alarm  among  the  more  conservative  thinkers  of  the 
Congregational  body.  Probably  the  view  most  popularly 
deemed  characteristic  of  that  theology  was  a  speculation 
as  to  a  possible  contact  with  the  Saviour  and  his  forgiving 
grace  in  the  future  life  for  those  who,  like  the  heathen,  had 
no  opportunity  for  knowledge  of  the  historic  Christ  in  this 
world, — a  view  commonly  called  "future  probation." 

These  speculations  were  first  brought  into  the  arena  of 
discussion  in  the  American  Board  at  its  annual  meeting  at 
Portland,  Me.,  in  1882,  where  Rev.  Dr.  E.  P.  Goodwin,  of 
Chicago,  and  Professor  Park,  then  an  emeritus  member  of 
the  Andover  faculty,  denounced  them  as  fatal  to  the  mis- 
sionary spirit.  There  was  no  general  debate,  however,  at 
this  meeting ;  and  for  the  next  three  years  the  topic  did 
not  prominently  enter  into  the  discussions  of  the  annual 
gatherings  of  the  Board.  But  meanwhile  the  Home  Sec- 
retary of  the  Board,  by  whom  correspondence  with  in- 
tended missionaries  was  conducted,  had  pressed  incjuiry 
into  the  possible  belief  of  candidates  in  these  speculations  ; 
and  the  Prudential  Committee,  which  has  the  power  of 
appointment,  had,  it  was  alleged,  rejected  several  because 
of  lack  of  definiteness  of  conviction  on  the  points  involved, 
or  full  acceptance  of  the  questioned  theories.  As  a  result, 
the  matter  came  up  with  great  earnestness  of  debate  at 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  Board  at  Des  Moines,  la.,  in 
1886;  and  eventuated  there  in  a  vote  declaring  that  the 
body  was  "  constrained  to  look  with  grave  apprehension 
upon  certain  tendencies  of  the  doctrine  of  a  probation  after 
death  "  as  "  divisive  and  perversive  and  dangerous  to  the 
churches  at  home  and  abroad,"  and  approving  the  action 


41 8  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  X 

of  the  Prudential  Committee.  At  the  same  time  the  Board 
instructed  the  Prudential  Committee  to  consider  the  wis- 
dom of  inviting  a  council  of  the  churches  for  advice  in  per- 
plexing questions  as  to  the  views  of  missionary  candidates. 
The  decision  at  Des  Moines  was  not,  however,  felt  to 
be  final.  Though  it  undoubtedly  represented  the  desires 
of  a  majority  of  the  churches  at  the  time,  a  large  and  in- 
creasing party,  who  had  no  sympathy  with  the  disputed 
theories,  felt  that  the  emphasis  laid  on  doctrinal  examina- 
tion by  the  Prudential  Committee  and  the  Home  Secretary 
was  undue,  and  that  a  Board  which  carried  on  the  foreign 
mission  work  of  all  the  churches  should  be  ready  to  wel- 
come candidates  to  its  fields  of  labor  whom  ecclesiastical 
councils  were  willing  to  install  in  home  pulpits.  But  a 
yet  larger  party  felt  that  any  toleration  of  doubt  regard- 
ing the  truths  of  the  debated  speculations  was  dangerous. 
One  or  two  cases  of  rejection  by  the  Committee  after  the 
Des  Moines  meeting,  notably  that  of  Mr.  William  H.  Noyes, 
increased  rather  than  diminished  the  warmth  of  feeling ; 
and  the  meeting  of  the  Board  at  Springfield,  Mass.,  in 
1887,  was  a  scene  of  even  more  animated  discussion  than 
that  at  Des  Moines.  The  majority  secured  the  reaffirma- 
tion of  the  Des  Moines  resolutions  and  the  approval  of  the 
action  of  the  Prudential  Committee  by  a  vote  of  more  than 
two  to  one ;  and  at  the  same  time  a  report  of  that  Com- 
mittee disapproving  of  the  reference  to  councils  of  cases  of 
doubtful  orthodoxy  in  missionary  candidates  was  adopted. 
The  Board  at  this  meeting  chose  Rev.  Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs  its 
president ;  and  a  few  days  later  he  signified  his  acceptance 
in  a  letter  approving  in  the  main  the  results  reached  at 
Des  Moines  and  Springfield,  but  intimating  that  the  Com- 
mittee ought  "  to  discriminate  between  the  want  of  an 
opinion  and  the  presence  of  one  which  implies  or  favors 
the  objectionable  theory;   between   even  a  vague  hope, 


THE  AMERICAN  BOARD.  419 

acknowledged  to  be  unsupported  by  the  Scripture,  only 
personal  to  one's  self,  held  in  silent  submission  to  subse- 
quent correction,  and  a  distinct  dogmatic  tendency  or  a 
formulated  conviction." 

For  the  next  two  years  comparatively  little  of  impor- 
tance occurred.  Mr.  Noyes,  who  seemed  to  many  to  come 
within  President  Storrs's  permissible  category,  was  once 
more  rejected  by  the  Prudential  Committee,  and  was  sent 
to  Japan  as  an  independent  laborer  by  the  Berkeley  Tem- 
ple Church  of  Boston.  Feeling  grew,  and  when  the  Board 
met  at  New  York  in  1889  a  heated  discussion  ensued, 
which  resulted,  however,  in  the  unanimous  acceptance  of 
President  Storrs's  letter  as  a  basis  for  action,  and  in  the 
appointment  of  a  committee  of  nine,  under  the  chairman- 
ship of  Rev.  Dr.  G.  L.  Walker,  of  Hartford,  to  examine 
into  the  methods  of  administration  pursued  by  the  officers 
of  the  Board  in  relation  to  candidates.  This  committee 
made  its  report  at  the  meeting  at  Minneapolis,  Minn.,  in 
1890,  and  unanimously  recommended  that  the  secretaries 
of  the  Board,  in  dealing  with  applicants  for  appointment, 
should  be  limited  to  two  prescribed  doctrinal  questions : 
'■'i.  What  are  your  views  respecting  each  of  the  leading 
doctrines  of  Scripture  commonly  held  by  the  churches 
sustaining  this  Board?  In  answering  this  question,  you 
may  use  your  own  language  or  refer  to  any  creeds  of 
acknowledged  weight.  2.  Have  you  any  views  at  vari- 
ance with  these  doctrines  or  any  views  of  church  govern- 
ment which  would  prevent  your  cordial  cooperation  with 
the  missionaries  of  this  Board?"  All  further  doctrinal 
examination,  it  was  recommended,  should  be  conducted 
by  the  Prudential  Committee  itself,  in  the  presence  of 
such  members  of  the  Board  and  personal  friends  of  the 
candidate  as  desired  to  attend.  These  suggestions  were 
duly  adopted  by  the  Board,  with  a  modification  permitting 


420  THE   CONGREGATIOXALISTS.  [Chap,  x. 

the  Prudential  Committee  to  substitute  correspondence  for 
a  personal  examination  when  such  personal  meeting  seemed 
impracticable. 

For  some  time  after  this  action  at  Minneapolis  it  was 
generally  believed  that  friction  in  the  Board  had  been 
practically  ended,  and  the  meeting  of  1891  passed  with- 
out a  word  of  criticism  or  doctrinal  debate.  But  the  feel- 
ing was  manifested  in  some  quarters  that  the  Prudential 
Committee  and  the  secretaries  had  failed  fully  to  carry 
out  the  Minneapolis  resolutions  or  to  act  entirely  on  the 
basis  of  President  Storrs's  letter,  and  though  it  was  denied 
that  such  charges  were  well  founded,  the  question  was 
reopened  at  the  meeting  at  Chicago  in  1892.  Here  the 
Board  refused  to  make  void  its  vote  passed  at  Des  Moines 
in  1886;  but  the  minority  was  strong  enough  to  lead  to 
the  passage  of  a  resolution  instructing  the  Committee  to 
interpret  that  vote  with  liberality  as  well  as  with  faithful- 
ness. At  the  same  time  the  Board  asked  its  Prudential 
Committee  to  canvass  anew  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Noyes, 
whose  record  as  a  missionary  in  Japan  had  proved  most 
creditable.  But,  though  the  Committee  reopened  the  case, 
though  it  was  shown  that  the  missionaries  of  the  Board  in 
Japan  desired  Mr.  Noyes  as  an  associate,  and  that  he  had 
never  taught  the  questioned  speculation  on  the  mission 
field,  the  Committee  rejected  Mr.  Noyes  for  a  third  time, 
on  his  statement  that  his  views  had  undergone  no  substan- 
tial alteration.  The  opinion  of  the  churches,  however,  was 
increasingly  in  favor  of  his  appointment  on  the  ground  of 
his  efficient  service,  and  when  the  Board  met  at  Worcester, 
Mass.,  in  October,  1893,  this  feeling  was  plainly  manifest. 
A  widely  representative  committee  of  fifteen,  under  the 
chairmanship  of  Hon.  H.  D.  Hyde,  of  Boston,  unanimously 
recommended  "  that  this  Board,  in  response  to  the  ex- 
pressed wish  of  its  missionai'ies  in  Japan,  and  in  recogni- 


THE  AMERICAN  BOARD.  42  I 

tion  of  the  successful  labors  of  the  Rev.  William  H.  Noyes 
in  that  empire,  requests  the  Prudential  Committee  to  offer 
to  him  an  appointment  as  a  missionary  of  the  Board.  The 
Board  declares  that  this  action  is  not  to  be  understood  as 
in  any  way  modifying  its  former  utterances  on  the  subject 
of  future  probation;"  and  the  Board  adopted  the  sugges- 
tion by  a  vote  of  106  to  24.  This  action  was  followed  by 
the  presentation  and  acceptance  of  the  resignations  of  the 
Home  Secretary,  Rev.  Dr.  E.  K.  Alden,  and  of  two  hon- 
ored members  of  the  Prudential  Committee ;  but  within  a 
few  weeks  the  appointment  thus  offered  was  accepted  by 
Mr.  Noyes. 

This  long  discussion  led  to  an  increasing  desire  that  the 
Board  should  be  made  in  some  way  more  directly  repre- 
sentative of  the  churches  in  the  choice  of  its  membership, 
— a  desire  that  found  expression  in  the  appointment  by 
the  National  Council  in  1889  of  a  committee  to  consider 
the  relations  of  all  the  benevolent  societies  to  the  Congre- 
gational churches.  And  so  general  was  the  feeling  that 
an  efficient  representation  of  the  churches  in  the  Board 
should  be  brought  about  that  this  committee  was  able  to 
report  to  the  Council  in  .1892  that,  since  its  appointment, 
twenty-one  State  bodies,  embracing  nearly  three  fourths 
of  the  churches  of  the  denomination,  had  taken  action 
favoring  such  a  change.  Urged  thus  by  many  State  or- 
ganizations widely  representative  of  Congregationalism, 
the  Board,  at  its  meeting  at  Chicago  in  1892,  voted  to  try 
for  one  year  the  experiment  of  filling  three  fourths  of  the 
vacancies  occurring  in  the  ranks  of  its  now  self-perpetuat- 
ing corporation  from  nominations  made  by  the  State  bodies, 
the  understanding  being  that  the  number  of  appointments 
to  be  made  from  any  State  should  be  proportionate  to  the 
membership  and  gifts  of  its  churches.  At  Worcester,  in 
1893,  the  Board  resolved  to  continue  the  experiment  for 


42  2  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

two  years  more,  and  to  increase  its  membership  at  the 
rate  of  twenty-five  a  year  till  it  numbered  one  hundred 
more  than  at  present  (i.e.,  to  350).  This  system,  or  some 
better  device,  will  doubtless  be  permanently  adopted ;  and 
will  make  the  Board  in  future  directly  representative  of 
the  churches  in  membership,  as  it  has  been  in  spirit  dur- 
ing most  of  its  past  history. 

The  past  few  years  which  have  witnessed  this  shifting 
in  the  topics  of  doctrinal  discussion  in  Congregational  cir- 
cles have  also  beheld  the  introduction  to  some  extent  of 
new  methods  of  Christian  activity.  Congregationalism  is 
always  favorable  to  individual  initiative.  A  Congrega- 
tional church  can  try  any  new  plan  of  labor  or  order  of 
worship  without  seeking  the  permission  of  any  superior 
body.  It  lends  itself  flexibly  to  experiments,  possessing 
the  merits  of  ready  adaptability  to  environment  as  thor- 
oughly as  they  are  enjoyed  by  similar  systems  of  local 
self-government  in  the  political  world.  One  such  experi- 
ment, introduced  by  a  Congregational  pastor,  has  become 
a  movement  of  almost  world-wide  extent.  On  Febru- 
ary 2,  1 88 1,  Rev.  F.  E.  Clark,  then  pastor  of  the  Wilhston 
Church  at  Portland,  Me.,  organized  a  number  of  his  young 
people  Avho  were  desirous  of  beginning  the  Christian  life 
into  an  association  pledged  to  regular  attendance  upon 
and  participation  in  its  meetings,  and  distinctly  cooperant 
in  the  activities  of  the  church.  The  "Young  People's 
Society  of  Christian  Endeavor,"  which  thus  came  into 
being,  has  been  adopted  by  many  other  Christian  bodies 
besides  the  Congregational  churches,  and  has  had  an 
amazing  growth,  numbering  within  twelve  years  of  its 
origin  nearly  twenty-eight  thousand  societies,  with  1,650,- 
000  members. 

Another  novel  method  of  Christian  work  with  which 
some  Congregational  churches  have  experimented,  as  they 


NOVEL   METHODS   OF   WORK.  423 

believe  with  encouraging  results,  during  the  last  few  years, 
is  what  is  rather  infelicitously  called  the  "  institutional 
church."  Such  a  church  aims  not  merely  to  unite  its 
members  in  worship,  Christian  nurture,  and  benevolence 
by  the  ordinary  channels  of  endeavor,  but'  to  touch  the 
surrounding  community  at  many  points,  providing  read- 
ing-rooms, gymnasiums,  and  bowling-alleys,  clubs  for  boys 
and  girls,  healthful  amusement  and  instruction  for  the 
tempted  and  the  homeless,  all  designed  to  make  the  gos- 
pel more  effective  in  the  upbuilding  of  an  upright,  self- 
respecting,  Christian  manhood  and  womanhood.  Such 
extension  of  their  work  has  been  undertaken  within  a 
recent  period  by  churches  in  Boston,  Worcester,  Hartford, 
Jersey  City,  Cleveland,  and  elsewhere;  and  though  the 
movement  is  still  so  far  in  its  initial  stage  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  estimate  its  permanent  value,  it  is  of  interest  as 
illustrating  the  ready  employment  by  the  Congregational 
churches  of  any  worthy  methods  of  effort  which  seem  to 
promise  the  furtherance  of  their  main  aim — the  upbuilding 
of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

A  similar  ready  response  to  the  broader  aspects  of  the 
application  of  the  gospel  to  human  needs  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  recent  introduction  of  sociological  instruction  into  Con- 
gregational theological  seminaries,  and  the  incorporation 
of  practical  experience  in  the  workings  of  preventative, 
reformatory,  charitable,  and  evangelistic  agencies  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  cities,  as  a  part  of  the  prescribed  ministe- 
rial training.  Harvard  University  led  the  way  by  offer- 
ing elective  studies  in  social  ethics  to  the  students  of  its 
Divinity  School  In  1880,  and  like  courses  were  opened  for 
the  choice  of  the  students  at  Andover  in  1887.  Hartford 
Seminary  in  1888  became  the  first  American  theological 
school  to  require  some  knowledge  of  sociological  principles 
as  essential  to  graduation ;  and  similar  Instruction  became 


424  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

part  of  the  course  at  Chicago  in  1890,  where  the  study 
was  first  made  a  separate  department  of  instruction.  At 
Yale  Divinity  School  Christian  sociology  was  introduced 
as  an  elective  in  1892,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1894  will 
become  a  fully  established  department  of  seminary  work. 
Student  residence  in  portions  of  large  cities  where  the 
problems  of  poverty  and  crime  are  most  pressing  has  been 
provided  for  the  young  men  of  Andover  Seminary  by  the 
"  Andover  House  "  in  Boston,  and  for  those  of  Chicago 
Seminary  in  connection  with  the  "  Hull  House  "  of  that 
city.  Nor  has  this  interest  been  confined  to  the  semina- 
ries. Iowa  College, — the  long-established  Congregational 
center  of  education  in  the  State  from  which  it  takes  its 
title, — has  recently  founded  a  chair  of  Applied  Christian- 
ity;  and  the  "Northwestern  Congregationalist "  of  Min- 
neapolis has  become  the  representative  of  this  nev/  move- 
ment under  the  altered  title  of  "The  Kingdom  "  since  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1894.  Here,  again,  it  is  too  soon 
to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  permanency  or  value  of  the 
tendency ;  but  it  evidences  the  quick  response  of  the  Con- 
gregational churches  and  their  institutions  to  all  that  is 
stirring  the  thoughts  of  Christian  men. 

A  further  illustration  of  the  same  ready  adaptability 
of  Congregationalism  to  novel  methods  is  to  be  seen  in 
its  increasing  employment  of  women  in  the  more  public 
aspects  of  Christian  work.  The  organization  of  the  Woman's 
Boards  of  Missions  has  already  been  described,  and  through 
their  impulse  not  only  are  the  women  of  the  churches 
largely  banded  together  for  the  support  of  missionary  en- 
deavor, the  number  of  w^omen  workers  on  the  fields  of  mis- 
sionary labor  at  home  and  abroad  is  great  and  constantly 
increasing.  Thus  far  these  women  have  been  almost  ex- 
clusively employed  in  teaching,  the  healing  of  the  sick, 
and  the  less  distinctively  ministerial  functions ;   but   the 


EMPLOYMENT  OF   WOMEN.  425 

"  Vermont  Domestic  Missionary  Society  "  has  during  the 
last  two  or  three  summers  employed  Christian  young 
women  to  go  about  two  by  two  in  the  remoter  and  more 
sparsely  settled  districts  of  the  State,  to  all  practical  pur- 
poses as  evangeHsts.  The  "  Year  Book  "  for  1893  I'eports 
the  names  of  not  less  than  thirteen  women  as  ministerial 
licentiates,  mostly  in  States  west  of  the  Mississippi.  But 
women  have  gone  further  than  this  primary  permission 
to  exercise  the  gift  of  preaching.  In  1880  the  church  at 
Nantucket,  Mass.,  came  under  a  woman's  charge,  though 
she  was  not  reported  as  ordained.  In  1893,  however,  the 
"Year  Book"  enumerated  nine  fully  ordained  women,  in 
various  towns  in  New  York,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
South  Dakota,  and  Washington, — seven  of  whom  were  in 
pastoral  charge  of  Congregational  churches.  Of  these  all 
except  one  had  been  ordained  since  1889.  On  February 
14,  1894,  the  first  ordination  of  a  woman  over  a  Congre- 
gational church  in  New  England  occurred  at  Littleton, 
Mass., — the  first  settlement  of  a  person  of  her  sex  effected 
by  a  council  in  the  history  of  American  Congregational- 
ism. In  most  of  these  cases  the  circumstances  have  been 
somewhat  exceptional,  and  such  ordinations  cannot  now 
be  called  good  Congregational  usage,  whatever  they  may 
become  in  process  of  time. 

This  desire  to  train  and  to  employ  women  in  a  wide 
range  of  Christian  activities  appears  also  in  the  opening 
of  the  doors  of  Hartford  Seminary  in  1889  to  women  on 
the  same  terms  as  to  men.  It  was  not,  indeed,  the  inten- 
tion of  the  seminary  to  encourage  women  to  enter  the 
ordained  ministry,  and  none  of  its  students  of  this  sex 
have  done  so ;  but  it  desired  to  offer  whatever  advantages 
it  had  to  give  to  those  who  might  add  strength  to  the 
Christian  life  of  the  time  as  scholars,  teachers,  laborers  in 
philanthropic  enterprises,  pastors'  assistants,  or  missionaries. 


426  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  x. 

Congregationalism  at  the  present  day  is  active  in  many 
directions.  It  is  not  afraid  to  try  experiments,  to  discuss 
doctrinal  truths,  and  to  test  methods  of  work.  But  what- 
ever of  novelty  in  method  or  in  thought  it  may  here  and 
there  exhibit,  it  never  was  more  true  to  the  main  principles 
of  faith  and  practice  which  it  has  inherited  than  at  present, 
or  more  conscious  of  a  mission  to  a  sinning  and  suffering 
world. 


CHAPTER   XL 

CONGREGATIONAL   FACTS   AND   TRAITS, 

Congregationalism,  as  a  form  of  polity,  is  much  more 
widely  extended  in  the  United  States  than  the  communion 
which  bears  the  Congregational  name.  Though  differing 
from  one  another  in  the  details  of  their  administration  of 
this  type  of  organization,  especially  in  the  extent  to  which 
the  principle  of  the  fellowship,  as  distinguished  from  the 
self-government  of  the  churches,  is  developed,  the  Con- 
gregational polity  is  that  of  a  large  portion  of  the  religious 
bodies  of  America.  As  Dr.  Carroll  has  pointed  out  in  the 
first  volume  of  this  series,  the  Baptists,  the  Plymouth 
Brethren,  the  Christians,  the  Disciples  of  Christ,  the  Uni- 
tarians, as  well  as  a  number  of  minor  religious  bodies,  are 
essentially  Congregational  in  government.  This  is  also 
true  of  certain  sections  of  the  Adventists,  of  the  Luther- 
ans, and  all  the  Hebrew  congregations,  so  that  the  same 
authority  classifies  no  less  than  62,373  religious  organi- 
zations,— nearly  38  per  cent,  of  all  congregations  in  the 
United  States, — as  of  this  polity. 

But  while  the  Congregational  system  of  church  govern- 
ment is  thus  widely  diffused,  and  while  other  polities  not 
distinctly  Congregational  have  in  many  instances  been 
modified  in  the  United  States  from  their  European  origi- 
nals by  the  introduction  of  some  Congregational  elements, 
the  body  known  as  the  Congregational  churches  has  a  dis- 
tinct unity  and  history.  It  represents  something  more 
than  a  form  of  church  government.     It  is  characterized 

427 


428  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  xi. 

by  a  high  degree  of  unity  in  doctrinal  development,  by  a 
marked  desire  for  learning  both  in  the  ministry  and  in 
the  laity,  by  similar  modes  of  worship,  and  above  all,  by  a 
visible  oneness  of  fellowship  manifested  in  advisory  coun- 
cils and  in  occasional  or  regularly  recurring  assemblies  for 
consultation.  The  Congregational  churches  therefore  con- 
stitute a  distinct  religious  whole, — as  marked  in  its  charac- 
teristics as  any  religious  denomination  in  America. 

The  Congregational  churches  have  not  increased  as  rap- 
idly in  numbers  as  some  religious  communions,  but  their 
growth  has  been  continuous  and  sure.  During  the  first 
two  centuries  of  their  existence  on  American  s.oil  they 
were  practically  confined  to  New  England ;  they  have 
since  spread  into  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  but  largely 
with  the  difTusion  of  the  New  England  element  of  our 
population.  Beginning  with  a  single  church  in  1620,  the 
fellowship  numbered  about  53  congregations  by  the  time 
of  the  Cambridge  Synod  (1646-48).  Though  minutely  ac- 
curate statistics  are  wanting,  it  is  thought  that  by  1696  the 
number  of  churches  had  increased  to  at  least  160,  includ- 
ing the  congregations  among  the  Indians.  In  1 760  Rev. 
(and  later  President)  Ezra  Stiles  numbered  the  churches 
at  530;  by  1845  they  had  multiplied  to  147 1,  with  14 12 
ordained  ministers;  i860  saw  2583  churches,  with  2634 
ministers;  in  1870  the  churches  numbered  3 121,  and  the 
ministers,  3098;  in  1880  there  were  3745  churches,  with 
3577  ministers.  The  census  of  1890  reported  the  number 
of  the  Congregational  churches  as  4868,  their  ministers, 
5058,  and  their  members  as  512,771.  At  the  beginning 
of  1894  these  churches  were  5236  in  number,  their  ordained 
ministers  5138,  their  licentiates  about  400,  and  their  mem- 
bership 561,641.  In  1894  these  churches  enrolled  646,694 
persons  in  their  Sunday-schools. 

The  missionary  labors  of  these  churches  are  carried  on 


CONGREGATIONAL   STATISTICS.  429 

by  six  national  societies, — the  "American  Board  of  Com- 
missioners for  Foreign  Missions,"  whicli  conducts  the  efforts 
of  the  churches  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  Redeemer's  king- 
dom in  other  lands;  the  "American  Education  Society," 
having  as  its  object  the  assistance  of  needy  students  for 
the  ministry,  the  upbuilding  of  colleges,  and  the  main- 
tenance of  schools,  especially  in  the  newer  districts  of  the 
West;  the  "Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society," 
conducting  home  missionary  labors  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  States,  but  chiefly  in  the  North  and  West ;  the 
"  American  Missionary  Association,"  laboring  for  the  most 
part  in  the  South  and  among  the  Indians  and  Chinese ; 
the  "  Congregational  Church  Building  Society,"  aiming 
to  supply  needy  congregations  with  meeting-houses  and 
parsonages;  and  the  "Congregational  Sunday-school  and 
Publishing  Society,"  which  not  only  prints  Christian  litera- 
ture, but  carries  on  as  a  separate  department  an  extensive 
mission  work  in  planting  and  supporting  Sunday-schools, 
especially  in  the  newer  parts  of  the  country.  Besides 
these  six  societies,  two  other  organizations  have  a  claim 
on  the  churches  as  a  whole, — the  "  American  Congre- 
gational Association,"  in  charge  of  the  Congregational 
Library  and  House  at  Boston ;  and  the  "  Ministerial  Re- 
lief Fund,"  for  the  aid  of  disabled  ministers,  their  widows 
and  orphans.  These  societies  are  assisted  by  the  Wom- 
an's Boards  and  Unions  and  numerous  State  and  local 
auxiliaries;  and  almost  every  church  of  self-sustaining 
proportions  has  its  "  sewing-society,"  or  some  similar 
local  organization  for  the  furtherance  of  missionary  activ- 
ity. As  a  result,  the  benevolent  contributions  of  the 
churches  to  these  societies  and  through  other  channels 
for  the  year  1893  amounted  to  $2,401,896.  During  the 
same  annual  period  the  legacies  reported  as  bequeathed 
to  the  same  objects  reached  the   sum   of  $947,311;    and 


430  THE   CONGREGA  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  xi. 

the  home  expenses  of  the  churches  were  reported  as 
$7,ooa,838. 

Modern  Congregationalism  has  few  representatives  who 
would  claim,  as  did  the  early  teachers  of  the  polity  which 
these  churches  inherit,  that  its  system  is  of  exclusive  divine 
authority.  There  have  been  prominent  expounders  of  its 
polity  within  recent  years  who  have  held  2ijicre  divino  con- 
ception of  its  claims.  But,  unlike  the  founders,  the  great 
majority  of  modern  Congregationalists  fail  to  find  in  the 
New  Testament  any  minute  outline  of  what  the  church 
should  be  or  any  inflexible  pattern  to  which  it  must  in 
all  particulars  conform.  They  gladly  recognize  the  true 
churchly  character  of  organizations  illustrating  other  types 
of  church  government  than  their  own.  As  far  as  possible 
they  hold  fellowship  with  all  believers  in  Christ,  however 
constituted.  But  while  they  thus  fail  to  discover  any  hard- 
and-fast  prescription  of  polity  in  the  New  Testament,  they 
do  find  there  certain  broad  principles  applicable  to  indi- 
vidual and  to  churchly  life,  which  they  believe  are  better 
illustrated  under  the  Congregational  polity  than  under  any 
other.  They  believe  that  that  polity,  more  naturally  than 
any  other,  tends  to  make  the  Christian  disciple  what  the 
gospel  intended  he  should  be,  a  full-rounded,  self-reliant, 
free  man  in  Christ.  They  are  confident  that  it  best  trains 
the  individual  Christian  to  an  independent,  intelligent,  and 
responsible  spiritual  life.  They  also  deem  it  more  accord- 
ant with  the  genius  of  the  political  institutions  of  a  free 
republic  like  the  United  States  than  any  other  form  of 
polity,  and  hence  peculiarly  adapted  to  all  lands  where 
high  intelligence  and  local  self-government  are  character- 
istic of  the  people. 

But,  in  particular,  a  Congregational  church  that  is  at  all 
true  to  its  ideal  illustrates  certain  traits  which  Congrega- 
tionalists hold  to  be  of  prime  importance.      It  aims,  first 


CONGREGATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.  43  1 

of  all,  to  be  a  pure  church.  The  belief  that  the  proper 
material  of  a  church  should  be  regenerate  persons  has  been 
characteristic  of  Congregationalism  from  the  beginning, 
Though  modified  in  regard  to  one  sacrament  in  the  Half- 
Way  Covenant  which  prevailed  in  New  England  for  a 
century  and  a  half,  it  has  always  been  the  view  of  Con- 
gregationalism that  admission  to  the  full  churchly  privileges 
of  communion  and  of  voting  is  only  for  those  who  can 
claim  a  Christian  experience.  And  with  the  abandonment 
of  the  Half- Way  Covenant  the  belief  of  modern  Congre- 
gationalism, though  it  ascribes  potential  membership  to  the 
baptized  children  of  the  congregation,  holds  that  personal 
followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus  are  the  only  proper  active  mem- 
bers of  a  church.  It  finds  no  other  type  of  a  Christian 
church  in  the  New  Testament,  it  conceives  no  other  to  be 
really  desirable.  Such  a  local  company  of  believers  it 
holds  now,  as  Congregationalism  has  held  from  the  be- 
ginning, becomes  a  church  by  entering  into  a  covenant 
to  serve  God  and  to  aid  one  another  in  the  Christian  life. 
At  the  same  time  it  maintains  that  all  believers  through- 
out the  world  are  spiritually,  though  not  governmentally, 
one  body, — the  church  universal, — of  which,  as  of  each 
local  church,  Christ  is  the  immediate  head. 

A  true  Congregational  church  is  a  learned  church.  This 
also  has  been  a  trait  of  the  denomination  from  the  begin- 
ning. Congregationalism  believes  that  a  learned  ministry 
is  the  only  permanently  successful  ministry ;  but  it  deems 
the  intelligence  of  the  pews  no  less  important  for  the  well- 
being  of  the  church  than  that  of  the  pulpit.  A  spiritual 
democracy,  like  a  political  democracy,  requires  self-control 
and  wisdom  in  its  membership  for  its  best  usefulness.  This 
sense  of  the  essential  character  of  these  qualities  has  led 
Congregationalism  to  plant  colleges  and  schools  from  the 
time  of  its  first  generation  on  New  England  soil  to  its  lat- 


432  7}IE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  xi. 

est  missionary  endeavors,  side  by  side  with  its  churches. 
Yet  it  is  not  of  the  opinion  that  these  schools  of  learning 
should  be  controlled  by  any  sectarian  bias.  It  willingly 
fosters  education  by  the  State,  but  it  believes  that  all  edu- 
cation should  be  dominated  by  a  broadly  Christian  spirit. 
It  holds  that  scholastic  advantages  should  be  open  to  all, 
irrespective  of  color  or  race ;  and  it  regards  the  school  as 
a  missionary  agency  only  secondary  in  value  to  the  preach- 
ing of  the  gospel. 

A  Congregational  church  is  also  a  missionary  church. 
In  this  particular  the  story  of  Congregationalism  is  one 
of  increasing  strength.  Its  missionary  spirit  did>  indeed 
appear  in  its  efforts  for  the  Indians  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries ;  but  the  opportunities  for  such  labors 
were  slight,  and  no  portion  of  Protestant  Christendom  had 
yet  awakened  to  a  full  sense  of  obligation  to  the  heathen 
world.  But  Congregationalism  has  always  had  men  of  a 
missionary  impulse,  like  Eliot,  the  Mayhews,  Edwards,  or 
Brainerd ;  and  with  the  new  revival  epoch  which  began  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  last  century,  missionary  zeal  be- 
came one  of  the  conspicuous  traits  of  the  Congregational 
body  as  a  whole.  No  duty  of  the  gospel  is  more  clearly 
recognized  by  the  churches  of  this  denomination  at  the 
present  day  than  that  of  carrying  the  gospel  to  foreign 
lands  and  to  the  destitute  regions  of  our  own  country; 
and  Congregational  self-government  has  clearly  demon- 
strated that  the  full  control  enjoyed  by  a  local  church 
over  its  own  affairs  does  not  impair  a  feeling  of  wide  obli- 
gation or  prevent  union  with  other  churches  of  the  same 
fellowship  in  the  support  of  highly  organized  missionary 
endeavor. 

A  Congregational  church  is  likewise  a  democratic  church. 
It  believes  that  all  its  membership,  whether  in  the  pulpit 
or  the  pews,  are  brethren,  and   are  equally  concerned  in 


CONGREGATIONAL  PRINCIPLES.  433 

its  welfare  and  administration.  But  the  Congregational 
churches  have  not  always  been  as  democratic  as  they  now 
are.  As  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  course  of  this  his- 
tory, Browne's  early  democratic  theories  speedily  gave 
place  to  the  semi-aristocratic  administrative  conceptions 
of  Barrowe  ;  and  these  Barrowist  ideals  dominated  all  early 
New  England  practice.  But  it  has  also  been  seen  that  the 
American  development  of  Congregationalism  led  to  full 
democracy  by  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  A 
Congregational  church  regards  its  pastor  as  the  first  among 
his  brethren,  the  leader  of  its  worship,  the  director  of  its 
labors,  the  moderator  of  its  meetings ;  but  with  no  power 
to  command  obedience.  It  is  the  church,  not  the  pastor, 
that  decides  regarding  admissions,  dismissions,  and  excom- 
munications, that  formulates  articles  of  faith  and  rules  of 
procedure,  that  determines  as  to  representation  in  coun- 
cils, that  appoints  officers  and  committees.  Doubtless  the 
voice  of  the  pastor  is  usually  decisive  when  he  makes  his 
opinion  known ;  but  the  decision  rests  in  the  hands  of  the 
church,  not  in  his.  And  this  decision  is  voiced  by  the 
votes  of  the  membership.  Till  well  into  this  century  vot- 
ing was  a  privilege  only  possessed  by  male  members  of 
adult  years ;  but  the  general  usage  of  the  Congregational 
churches  now  extends  it  to  all  members  of  maturity,  both 
men  and  women,  without  very  strictly  inquiring  whether 
they  have  attained  a  legal  majority.  At  the  same  time, 
like  all  democratic  bodies,  the  Congregational  churches 
make  large  use  of  committees  to  handle  any  specially  dif- 
ficult business  and  to  report  their  results  rather  than  their 
processes  for  the  approval  of  the  church.  Most  churches 
of  size  have  a  "  Prudential  Committee,"  which  naturally 
includes  the  deacons,  to  aid  the  pastor  and  to  conduct 
with  him  the  examination  of  candidates  for  membership ; 
but  all  such  committees  are  viewed  as  possessed  of  povve-' 


434  ^^^    CONG  REG  A  TIONALISTS.  [Chap.  xi. 

simply  by  delegation  from  the  church  to  which  they  owe 
their  being. 

A  Congregational  church  is,  moreover,  a  free  church. 
The  self-governing  constitution  of  each  local  church  has 
been  a  cardinal  principle  of  Congregational  polity  from  its 
beginning.  No  Congregational  church  is  under  the  domi- 
nance of  any  other  ecclesiastical  organization  or  person. 
This  freedom  enables  such  a  church  to  choose  its  own 
officers.  Though  Congregational  practice  esteems  it  good 
order  that  a  minister  be  placed  in  pastoral  charge  of  a  con- 
gregation by  the  advice  of  the  representatives  of  neighbor- 
ing churches  gathered  in  council,  the  ultimate  basis  of  the 
relationship,  in  modern  as  in  early  Congregationalism,  is 
his  election  by  the  church,  and  his  acceptance  of  the  choice. 
So  fundamental  is  this  principle  that  modern  Congrega- 
tional usage  esteems  a  man  a  pastor  who  is  in  the  service 
of  a  church  by  its  definite  vote,  even  if  no  council  has 
been  called  to  advise  on  his  installation, — though  it  deems 
such  a  relation  less  regular  than  when  "  settled  by  council." 
In  the  same  way  a  church  has  entire  freedom  to  elect  its 
deacons,  or  add  to  them  any  other  officers  which  it  may 
desire,  and  in  these  cases  modern  Congregationalism  rec- 
ognizes no  occasion  for  advice  from  the  representatives  of 
other  churches  gathered  in  council. 

This  freedom  also  enables  a  church  to  formulate  its  state- 
ment of  doctrine  in  its  own  words.  Congregationalism 
originated  in  the  belief  that  the  Bible  is  a  sufficient  and 
an  authoritative  exposition  of  polity  as  well  as  of  doctrine, 
and  it  has  at  all  times  held  that  the  conformity  of  its  beliefs 
and  practices  to  the  Word  of  God  is  of  prime  importance ; 
but  it  has  allowed  each  church  to  express  its  conception 
of  Christian  truth  in  its  own  way.  Such  expressions  be- 
come tests  for  membership  in  the  local  church  which  adopts 
them  in  so  far  as  that  church  desires  to  use  them  for  such 


CONGREGATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.  435 

a  purpose.  At  the  same  time,  as  has  already  been  pointed 
out,  the  Congregational  churches  in  their  representative 
gatherings  have  never  hesitated  to  present  their  faith  in 
public  confessions,  but  such  general  confessions  are  not 
binding  on  any  local  church  unless  adopted  by  its  own 
act.  They  are  witnesses  to  the  faith  of  the  churches  in 
general,  not  tests  of  ministerial  fitness. 

This  freedom  likewise  enables  a  church  to  order  its  wor- 
ship as  seems  most  fitting  to  its  members.  The  founders 
of  the  Congregational  churches  in  the  United  States  came 
out  from  the  liturgical  system  of  the  Church  of  England 
into  what  they  rightly  deemed  the  liberty  of  unprescribed 
form  and  unfettered,  or,  as  they  said,  "  unstinted,"  prayer. 
They  rejoiced  in  their  freedom  of  access  to  God  in  pubHc 
worship  in  words  of  supplication  or  thanksgiving  suited  to 
the  actual  experiences  of  the  hour.  Indeed,  many  of  them 
doubted  the  rightfulness  of  the  use  of  a  rigid  liturgy  at 
all;  and  the  Prayer-Book  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the 
rarest  of  volumes  in  early  New  England  libraries.  Congre- 
gationalism, as  a  whole,  has  always  found  the  liberty  of  a 
non-liturgical  worship  congenial  to  its  taste  and  adapted 
to  its  spiritual  profit.  But  no  prescription  prevents  any 
church  that  finds  beauty  and  appropriateness  in  appointed 
forms  of  supplication  or  common  confessions  of  faith  from 
employing  these  methods  of  worship  if  it  sees  fit ;  nor  does 
any  rule  ordain  the  exact  form  or  proportion  of  the  vari- 
ous elements  entering  into  public  worship.  Each  church 
is  free  to  adapt  its  methods  to  its  own  necessities.  There 
has  been  throughout  the  recent  history  of  the  denomination 
a  constant  tendency  to  increase  the  variety  of  the  services 
of  the  house  of  God  by  larger  use  of  music,  by  responsive 
reading  of  portions  of  Holy  Writ,  by  the  employment  of 
pnnted  outlines  and  forms  of  worship;  but  these  modifi- 
cations have  not  deprived  the  sermon  and  the  unwritten 


436  THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  xi. 

petition  of  the  central  place  in  Congregational  worship 
which  they  have  always  occupied.  There  is  also  notice- 
able in  many  churches  an  increasing  observance  of  the 
greater  memorial  days  of  the  Christian  year, — Christmas, 
Good  Friday,  and  Easter, — days  which  the  fathers  care- 
fully left  unmarked.  There  is  likewise  a  tendency  in  some 
quarters  in  the  Congregational  body,  as  in  some  other 
denominations,  to  introduce  of  late  the  recognition  of  cer- 
tain special  days  not  accepted  by  the  church  universal,  like 
"  Children's  Sunday," — a  form  of  calendar  for  the  Chris- 
tian year  much  less  to  be  desired  than  the  observance  of 
days  which  have  been  considered  for  ages  commemorative 
of  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord.  But  none  of  these  move- 
ments have  gone  far  enough  to  alter  the  general  character 
of  Congregational  worship,  which  is  still  essentially  non- 
liturgical,  and  still  regards  Sunday  as  the  most  sacred  of 
all  ecclesiastical  days  and  the  only  one  the  observance  of 
which  is  binding  upon  the  Christian.  Modern  Congrega- 
tionalism makes  large  use  of  the  prayer-meeting,  in  which, 
besides  the  minister,  the  male  members  generally,  and  in 
some  places  their  feminine  associates,  are  encouraged  to 
take  part.  But  each  Congregational  church  is  free  to 
choose  the  number  and  nature  of  its  services,  and  to  adapt 
them  as  best  it  can  to  its  own  wants  and  the  necessities  of 
the  community  where  it  is  placed. 

A  Congregational  church  is,  finally,  bound  together  in 
mutually  responsible  fellowship  with  other  churches  of  the 
same  denomination.  This  feature  of  American  Congrega- 
tionalism is  probably  the  trait  least  understood  by  the 
representatives  of  other  communions;  but  it  is  that  which 
most  distinguishes  the  Congregationalists  of  the  United 
States  from  the  Independents  of  Great  Britain,  and  from 
most  of  the  other  denominations  of  America  which  are 
essentially  Congregational  in  polity.     The  Congregational 


CONGREGATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.  437 

churches  of  the  United  States  developed  the  principle  of 
fellowship  in  early  colonial  days,  and  they  have  ever  re- 
garded it  as  of  the  highest  value.  They  believe  that  each 
local  church  has  Christ  as  its  immediate  head,  and  stands 
in  a  sisterly  relation  to  &vQry  other  similar  congregation. 
They  believe  that,  like  the  members  of  an  earthly  house- 
hold, while  they  have  no  right  to  sit  in  judgment  one 
on  another  or  to  punish  one  another,  they  owe  to  one 
another  counsel  in  difhculty,  consultation  in  important 
action,  and  warning  when  in  apparent  error.  They  hold 
that,  as  brothers  and  sisters  may  be  compelled  to  cease 
communication  with  a  sinning  member  of  a  human  family, 
so  sister-churches,  having  failed  to  call  back  an  erring  church 
from  its  evil  practices,  may  withdraw  fellowship  from  it 
while  it  continues  in  its  way.  The  expression  of  this  fellow- 
ship is  chiefly  through  advisory  councils,  consisting  of  the 
pastors  and  delegates  of  churches,  and  often,  though  rather 
by  courtesy,  of  a  few  additional  individuals,  summoned 
to  give  their  opinion  in  cases  of  ministerial  settlement  and 
dismission,  ordinations,  the  organization  of  new  churches, 
or  difficulties  arising  in  a  congregation.  A  council  may 
be  called  by  a  church,  a  party  in  a  church  in  case  of  quar- 
rel, or  a  company  of  persons  desirous  of  being  recognized 
as  a  church.  It  may  consist  of  the  representatives  of  any 
churches  which  may  be  invited  and  may  choose  to  accept ; 
but  it  is  not  considered  good  usage  in  modern  Congrega- 
tional practice  to  call  the  majority  of  its  members  from 
elsewhere  than  the  immediate  vicinage.  No  church  or 
person  not  named  in  the  invitation,  or  "  letter-missive," 
may  have  a  seat  in  a  council,  nor  can  any  business  be  dis- 
cussed that  is  not  specified  in  the  same  warrant,  nor  has 
the  council  a  proper  quorum  unless  a  majority  of  the  pos- 
sible members  invited  are  present.  Its  advice  is  not  a  bind- 
ing judicial  decision,  but  a  friendly  counsel;  yet  instances 


438  THE    CONGREGATIONALISTS.  [Chap.  xi. 

where  the  opinion  of  a  council  is  not  followed  are  exceed- 
ingly rare. 

Congregationalism  further  illustrates  the  fellowship  of 
its  churches  by  their  union  all  over  the  United  States  in 
district  conferences  and  associations,  in  State  bodies,  and 
finally  in  the  National  Council,  for  consultation  at  fixed 
periods.  These  various  expressions  of  fellowship  knit  the 
Congregational  churches  into  one  body,  while  preserving 
to  each  local  congregation  the  rights  of  self-government 
and  individual  initiative. 

Congregationalism  has  had  a  history  of  over  three  hun- 
dred years  since  its  beginnings  in  England.  It  has  been 
more  than  two  centuries  and  a  half  on  American  soil.  It 
settled  and  molded  New  England ;  and  through  its  influ- 
ence on  the  political  institutions  of  that  region  it  has  con- 
tributed far  beyond  any  other  polity  to  the  fashioning  of 
the  political  ideals  of  the  United  States.  It  has  sought 
more  than  any  other  polity  on  American  soil  to  promote 
education.  It  has  been  forward  in  missionary  activity. 
It  has  maintained  a  high,  strenuous  ideal  of  the  Christian 
life.  It  has  been  a  prime  force  in  the  political,  intellect- 
ual, and  spiritual  development  of  America.  But  while  its 
adherents  are  thankful  for  the  heritage  of  noble  men  and 
worthy  deeds  into  which  they  have  entered,  they  believe 
that  it  has  a  greater  mission  yet  to  perform  than  anything 
which  it  has  done  in  the  past.  They  believe  that  while 
the  Congregational  body  may  never  become  the  largest 
of  the  tribes  of  our  American  Israel  in  its  nominal  com- 
munion, its  principles  of  democracy,  freedom,  self-govern- 
ment, and  responsible  fellowship  will  increasingly  penetrate 
and  mold  all  American  Christian  life;  and  they  are  confi- 
dent, also,  that,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  its 
story  will  be  one  of  growing  numerical  strength,  usefulness, 
and  spiritual  power  as  the  years  are  added  to  its  history. 


INDEX. 


Abbot,  George,  Archbishop,  82,  83, 

88,  91. 
Abbot,  Samuel,  349. 
Adams,  Pres.  John,  278. 
Adams,  Rev.  William,  246. 
"Advance,"  the,  390. 
Agreement,  Heads  of.    See  Heads  of 

Agreement. 
Ainsworth,  Henry,  51-54. 
Albany    Convention,   317,   365,    382, 

383,  385,  388,  397- 
Alden,  Rev.  E.  K.,  417-421. 
Alden,  John,  Plymouth  Pilgrim,  65. 
Allen,  Rev.  James,  188. 
Allen,  Rev.  Timothy,  295. 
Allerton,  Isaac,  73,  112. 
American  Baptist  Missionary  Union, 

325- 

American  Board,  origin  and  early  his- 
tory, 323-326 ;  Western  missions, 
375)  377)  406;  recent  discussions, 
416-422 ;  also  429. 

American  Congregational  Association, 
385,  388,  429. 

American  Congregational  Union.  See 
Cong.  Church  Building  Society. 

American  Education  Society.  See  Ed- 
ucation Society. 

American  Home  Missionary  Society. 
See  Congregational  Home  Miss. 
Soc. 

American  Missionary  Association, 
401-406,  429. 

Ames,  William,  102. 

Amistad  Committee,  401. 

Amyraut,  Moses,  254. 

Anabaptists,  rise,  8,  9;  characteris- 
tics, 10-13 ;  influence  in  England, 
26,  27 ;  possible  indebtedness  of 
Browne  to  them,  35,  36. 

Andover  House,  424. 


Andover  Seminary,  foundation,  335, 
348-353  ;  creed  and  organization, 
351,  352,  389;  trial  of  professors, 
415,  416. 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  184,  192-195, 
204. 

Anglican  party,  characteristics,  17; 
Puritanism  strengthens  it,  22-24 ; 
political  ideals,  24 ;  triumph  under 
James  I.,  80,  81 ;  becomes  Ar- 
minian,  85-87 ;  aims,  87 ;  Laud's 
leadership,  90. 

"Anthology,  the  Monthly,"  335. 

Antinomian  dispute,  138-145 ;  its 
Synod,  142-144. 

Appleton,  Rev.  Jesse,  335. 

Arianism,  in  England,  268 ;  in  New 
England,  277-279,  330,  33^- 

Arminianism,  spread  in  England,  85- 
89 ;  in  New  England,  253,  254,  267- 
279,  281",  283,  293,  305,  329,  332; 
Oberlin,  364;  not  excluded  from 
Cong,  fellowship,  411. 

Armstrong,  Gen.  S.  C,  403. 

Aspinwall,  William,  113. 

Associations,  ministerial,  origin,  198, 
199  ;  extension  and  duties,  202-204, 
208,  371 ;  differences  East  and 
West,  393. 

Atkinson,  Rev.  Geo.  H.,  378. 

Atlanta  University,  404. 

Atonement,  Pynchon's  view,  215- 
216 ;  general,  287  ;  the  younger  Ed- 
wards, 294-299  ;  Bushnell,367,  368. 

Awakening,  Great.  See  Great  Awak- 
ening. 

Aylmer,  John,  bishop,  43,  44. 

Bacon,  Rev.  Leonard,  379,  380,  382, 
399)  400. 

Bancroft,  Richard,  Archbishop,  23, 
80,  81. 


439 


440 


INDEX. 


Bangor  Seminary,  354. 

Baptism,  how  administered,  243. 

Baptists,  church  established  in  Eng- 
land, 59;  opposed  in  Mass.,  146, 
147  ;  ch.  at  Boston,  146 ;  exemp- 
tion granted,  235  ;  also  427. 

Barrowe,  Henry,  early  life,  43 ;  con- 
nection with  London  ch.,  29,  41 ; 
arrest,  42  ;  trial,  43,  44,  49 ;  writ- 
ings, 44,  45  ;  his  type  of  Congrega- 
tionalism, 45,  46 ;  martyrdom,  50 ; 
bequest,  51. 

Bartlett,  William,  beginnings  of  Amer- 
ican Board,  323 ;  founding  of  An- 
dover,  350-352. 

Beckwith,  Rev.  George,  295. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Lyman,  362,  363. 

Belcher,  Gov.  Jonathan,  257. 

Belknap,  Rev.  Jeremy,  collection  of 
hymns,  331. 

Bellamy,  Rev.  Joseph,  theological 
views,  182,  274,  278,  279,  280, 
286-288,  296 ;  preaching,  258,  286 ; 
pupils,  287,  288,  293,  332,  349. 

Beloit  College,  375. 

Belsham,  Rev.  Thomas,  Unitarian 
writings,  338,  339. 

Benton,  Rev.  J.  A.,  378,  379. 

Bible  Societies,  313,  314. 

Bilson,  Thomas,  bishop,  23. 

Blaurock,  Anabaptist  leader,  9. 

Boston,  settled  and  ch.  formed,  iii- 

113- 
Boston  Platform,  400. 
"  Boston  Recorder,"  the,  386. 
Bowland,   Thomas,   early   Congrega- 

tionalist,  28. 
Bowman,  Christopher,  49. 
Bradford,  Gov.  William,  Scroobych., 

57;  character,  68,  69;  at  Plymouth 

71,  74;  at  Salem,  106;  judgment  of 

Roger  Williams,  130;   death,  183; 

quoted,  69,  70,  73,  75,    230;    also 

223. 
Brainerd,  Rev.  David,  263. 
Brattle    Church,  199-201,   220,    239, 

244. 
Brattle,  Thomas,  200. 
Brattle,  Rev.  William,  199,  239. 
Brewster,    Elder    William,    Scrooby 

ch.,  56;   its  ruling  elder,  59;   with 

the  Pilgrims,  61-74;  feeling  toward 


Ch.  of  England,  77;  preaching, 
227. 

Briant,  Rev.  Lemuel,  writings  and 
theologic  position,  271-273,  276, 
278,  279,  330. 

Bright,  Rev.  Francis,  104,   108,  231. 

Brown,  Rev.  Clark,  Arian  views,  T,'i,T,. 

Brown,  Rev.  John,  of  Cohasset,  2 78. 

Brown,  Moses,  350. 

Browne,  John,  of  Salem,  107,  128. 

Browne,  Robert,  relations  to  Cong., 
30-32 ;  early  life,  32,  2,Z  \  becomes 
a  Separatist,  33-36  ;  church  in  Nor- 
wich, 36;  in  Holland,  37;  his 
theories,  38,  39,  45,  46,  129;  con- 
forms to  Ch.  of  England,  40,  41 ; 
death,  41. 

Browne,  Samuel,  107,  128. 

Buckminster,  Rev.  J.  S.,  336. 

Bulkeley,  Rev.  Peter,  at  Antinomian 
synod,  143. 

Burge,  Rev.  Caleb,  299. 

Burghley,  Lord,  scruples  regarding 
vestments,  17;  related  to  Robert 
Browne,  32 ;  protects  him,  36,  40, 
41 ;  examines  Barrowe  and  Green- 
wood, 43,  44 ;   petition  to,  46. 

Burial  Hill  Declaration,  190,  397-399, 

413- 
Burton,  Rev.  Asa,  303. 
Bushnell,    Rev.    Horace,    work   and 

theology,  365-369. 
Calef,  Robert,  198. 
Calhoun,  Rev.  G.  A.,  359. 
California,  Cong,  beginnings  in,  378, 

379- 

Calvin,  John,  7,  8,  281. 

Calvinism,  at  Council  of  1865,  397, 
398;  at  Oberlin  Council,  411. 

Calvinists,  Old.     See  Old  Calvinists. 

Cambridge  Platform,  160-163;  ap- 
proved by  Synod  of  1679,  188  ;  min- 
isterial standing,  393,  394;  quoted, 
205,  217,  219,  224,  226-230,  246- 
248,  249 ;  also  400. 

Cambridge  Synod,  its  causes,  meet- 
ing, and  work,  156-164,  428. 

Cambridge  University,  Puritan  char- 
acter, 18,  19,  32. 

Caner,  Rev.  Henry,  330. 

Cartwright,  Thomas,  19-22,  32,  37, 
153- 


INDEX. 


441 


Carver,  John,  Plymouth  Pilgrim,  65  ; 
chosen  governor,  67 ;  died,  68. 

Cathari,  3. 

Channing,  Rev.  W.  E.,  pastorate, 
336 ;  at  Codman's  ordination,  337 ; 
reply  to  the  "  Panoplist,"  339, 
340;  sermon  at  Sparks's  ordina- 
tion,  341 ;   at  Dedham,  342 ;   also 

344.  345- 

Charles  I.,  character,  84,  85  ;  relations 
to  Parliament,  85  ;  rewards  High 
Anglican  clergy,  88 ;  limits  Puritan 
preaching,  91 ;  grants  Mass.  char- 
ter, 96. 

Charles  II.,  191,  192. 

Chauncy,  Pres.  Charles,  of  Plarvard, 
174,  176,  177. 

Chauncy,  Rev.  Charles,  of  Boston, 
opposes  Great  Awakening,  260, 
261,  272;  on  original  sin,  274; 
Universalist  views,  295,  296 ;  other 
references,  305,  330. 

Cheeshahteaumuck,  Caleb,  169. 

Chicago,  Cong,  in,  373,  390. 

Chicago  Theological   Seminary,  388- 

390,  395.  424- 
Child,  Dr.  Robert,  157,  159,  160,  171, 

73- 

Chinese,  missions  among,  406. 

Church,  nature  of  a  Cong,  ch.,  217, 
218,  237. 

Church-membership,  condition  of 
franchise,  114,  122,  124;  doctrinal 
tests,  219,  220. 

Church-officers,  numbers,  choice,  and 
duties,  220-237. 

Clap,  Roger,  cited,  no. 

Clark,  Rev.  F.  E.,  422. 

Clark,  Rev.  Joseph  S.,  343,  380,  381, 
385,  388. 

Clark,  Rev.  Peter,  discussion  on  origi- 
nal sin,  274,  275. 

Clarke,  Rev.  John,  331. 

Clarke,  Rev.  Samuel,  Arian  views, 
268,  269,  277. 

Cleaveland,  Rev.  John,  263. 

Clyfton,  Rev.  Richard,  58. 

Cobbett,  Rev.  Thomas,  175. 

Coddington,  William,  108,  145. 

Codman,  Rev.  John,  Unitarian  con- 
troversy, 337,  338. 

Cogswell,  Prof.  Jonathan,  360. 

Collins,  Anthony,  284. 


Colman,  Rev.  Benj.,  200-202 ;  quoted, 
244;  the  Great  Awakening,  255, 
256,  260,  264. 

Conant,  Roger,  at  Plymouth,  70 ;  set- 
tles Salem,  95,  96. 

Conferences,  393. 

Confession,  Westminster.  See  West- 
minster Confession. 

Confession  of  1680,  188-190;  ap- 
proved at  Saybrook,  207 ;  at  Na- 
tional Council  of  1865,  399. 

Confessions  of  faith,  local,  218,  219. 

Congregational  Church  Building  So- 
ciety, 383,  384,  3S8,  429._ 

Congregational  Home  Missionary  So- 
ciety, 328,  329,  373-376,  378,  382, 
405,  429. 

Congregational  House,  385. 

Congregational  Library,  384,  429. 

"  Congregational  Quarterly,"  380, 
381,  384,  388. 

Congregational  Sunday-school  and 
Publishing  Society,  429. 

Congregationalism,  originates  in  be- 
lief that  Bible  teaches  polity,  i  ;  in- 
debtedness to  Anabaptists,  26,  27, 
35,  36;  beginnings,  27-30;  debt 
to  Browne,  30-32,  37;  Browne's 
views,  38,  39 ;  martyrs,  40,  50 ; 
Barrowe's  influence,  42 ;  contrast 
between  his  views  and  those  of 
Browne,  45,  46 ;  London  ch.  ex- 
iled to  Holland,  51;  its  confes- 
sion, 52 ;  theGainsborough-Scrooby 
ch.,  56;  emigration  to  Leyden, 
59;  transfer. to  America,  60-67; 
Mass.  settled,  95-97 ;  the  Puri- 
tans Congregationalized,  100-109; 
becomes  a  State  ch.,  114,  115; 
early  characteristics,  124,  149- 
153;  fellowship  strengthened,  125- 
163;  intolerance,  125-147;  effect 
of  Roger  Williams's  dispute,  136; 
the  first  "  synod,"  142-144;  lay  in- 
fluence, 150,  151  ;  love  of  education, 
151,  152,  391,  403,  431  ;  convention 
of  1643,  156;  Cambridge  Synod 
and  Platform,  156-163;  Indian 
missions,  164-170,  375,  377,  402, 
405 ;  the  Half- Way  Covenant, 
170-182;  Reforming  Synod,  185- 
190;  Confession  of  1680,  188- 
190;  Ministerial  Associations,  198, 


442 


INDEX. 


199;  proposals  of  1705,  202-204; 
Saybrook  Platform,  204-209 ;  John 
Wise,  209-212;  little  theologic 
discussion  in  early  Cong.,  214- 
216;  early  theories  and  usages, 
217-250;  treatment  of  Dissenters 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  234-237; 
State  interference,  248,  249 ;  the 
Great  Awakening,  255-260;  conse- 
quences, 260-266 ;  rise  of  theolog- 
ical parties,  266,  267 ;  the  Liberal 
school,  267-279;  the  Edwardean 
party,  280-306 ;  Hopkinsianism, 
288-292  ;  the  Atonement,  294-299  ; 
Emmons's  contributions  to  polity, 
307,  308 ;  Cong,  in  Vermont,  New 
York,  and  Ohio,  309-311;  rise  of 
home  missions,  311-314;  inter- 
course with  Presbyterians,  306, 
314-316;  Plan  of  Union,  316-319, 
370-373,  381,  382;  distrust  of 
Cong.,  318,  364,  373;  Cong,  dises- 
tablished, 236,  329 ;  new  period  of 
revivals,  319-321,  329;  new  mis- 
sionary agencies,  322-329 ;  Unita- 
rian separation,  329-346 ;  founding 
of  theological  seminaries,  346-365, 
388-390,  392 ;  Taylor-Tyler  con- 
troversy, 355-361  ;  Bushnell,  365- 
369;  westward  spread  of  Cong., 
371-379;  revival  of  interest  in 
polity,  371-379;  Bacon,  Thomp- 
son, and  Clark,  379-381  ;  steps  to- 
ward greater  union,  381 ;  the  Albany 
Convention  and  its  results,  382-385  ; 
Library  and  House,  384,  385  ;  H.  M. 
Dexter,  385-387;  Chicago  Semi- 
nary, 388-390 ;  the  New  West,  391, 
392  ;  the  National  Council  of  1865, 
395-401  ;  discussion  over  Calvin- 
ism, 397,  398;  the  "Burial  Hill 
Declaration,"  398,  399;  statement 
of  polity,  400;  work  at  the  South, 
401-405  ;  woman's  work,  406,  407, 
424,  425  ;  Triennial  National  Coun- 
cil, 408-412;  Creed  of  1883,  412- 
414;  recent  tendencies,  414-426; 
Andover  controversy,  415,  416;  the 
American  Board,  416-422 ;  novel 
methods,  422-426;  statistics,  427- 
430;  characteristics  of  a  Cong,  ch., 
430-438. 


"  Congregationalist,"  the,  386. 

Connecticut,  settlement,  11 7-1 19; 
early  provision  for  education,  152; 
legislature  tries  to  settle  Half-Way 
Covenant  dispute,  175,  178;  union 
with  New  Plaven,  178;  religious 
condition  at  opening  of  eighteenth 
century,  204 ;  legislature  calls  Say- 
brook  Synod,  206-209 ;  laws  re- 
garding ministerial  support,  233, 
234;  toleration  of  Dissenters,  235, 
236 ;  consequences  of  Great  Awak- 
ening, 261  ;  laws  against  "  Separa- 
tists," 262,  263;  General  Associa- 
tion opposes  Whitefield,  265  ;  Gen- 
eral Association  promotes  home 
missions,  311,  312  ;  Cong,  disestab- 
lished, 236,  329 ;  friendliness  to 
Presbyterianism,  314,  315. 

"  Connecticut  Evangelical  Magazine," 
312,  322. 

Connecticut  Missionary  Society,  312. 

Connecticut  Pastoral  Union,  360. 

Consociation,  early  meaning  of  term, 
156,  176;  origin  of  system,  203, 
207,  208;  effects,  306,  315,  318; 
decline,  368,  380. 

Consociation,  General,  of  1741,  261. 

Contributions  in  early  New  England, 
242. 

Convention,  Albany.  See  Albany 
Convention. 

Convention,  General,  of  1846,  381. 

Convention,  Ministerial,  of  Mass.  See 
Massachusetts  Convention. 

Convention  of  1657,  175. 

Cooper,  Rev.  William,  264. 

Coppin,  John,  Cong,  martyr,  40. 

Cotton,  Rev.  John,  opposes  Separa- 
tism, 108  ;  advises  consultation  with 
Plymouth,  1 12;  ordination,  113, 
233  ;  Roger  Williams's  dispute,  133  ; 
Antinomian  dispute,  138-144;  writ- 
ings, 154,  155 ;  at  Convention  of 
1643,  156;  Cambridge  Synod,  159; 
writes  preface  to  Platform,  160 ; 
Half-Way  Covenant  views,  174; 
quoted,  219,  230;  death,  183. 

Creed  of  1883,  the,  412-414. 

Councils,  advisory,  225,  247,  393,  437. 

Covenant,  basis  of  Cong.  Ch.,  102, 
217,  218. 


INDEX. 


443 


Cradock,  Gov.  Matthew,  97. 
Dale,  Sir  Thomas,  148. 
Dana,  Rev.  James,  278,  293. 
Dartmouth  College,  169. 
Davenport,    Rev.     James,     excesses, 

259- 

Davenport,  Rev.  John,  procures  min- 
isters for  Mass.,  104;  settlement 
of  New  Haven,  119-121;  Antino- 
mian  Synod,  143;  writings,  154; 
opposes  Half- Way  Covenant,  174, 
175,  177;  at    Boston,  178,  183. 

Davison,  William,  57. 

Deacon,  nature  of  his  office,  229,  230, 
242. 

Deaconess,  nature  of  her  office,  230, 
231. 

Dedham  case,  222,  341-343. 

Dexter,  Henry  M.,  opinion  of 
Browne,  31,40;  contributions  to 
Cong.,  385-388,  392,  394,  409. 

Doddridge,  Rev.  Philip,  268. 

Dorchester-Windsor  ch.  formed,  109- 
rii. 

Dort,  Synod  of,  86. 

Dow,  Rev.  Daniel,  359. 

Dudley,  Gov.  Joseph,  192,  204. 

Dudley,  Gov.   Thomas,  96,  108,  112, 

^39- 

Dummer,  Lieut. -Gov.  William,  212. 

Dunster,  Pres.  Henry,  Baptist  suf- 
erer,  146. 

Dwight,  Pres.  Timothy,  pupil  of 
younger  Edwards,  294;  theologic 
position,  280,  299,  301-303;  pro- 
motes union  with  Presbyterians, 
315  ;  founding  of  American  Board, 
323 ;  plans  Yale  Divinity  School, 
354;  teacher  of  Taylor,  355;  also 
305,  306,  337. 

Eaton,  Gov.  Theophilus,   1 19-12 1. 

Eckley,  Rev.  Joseph,  295. 

Education,  sought  by  Congregation- 
alists,  151,  152,  391,  403,  431. 

Education  Society,  326,  327,  382, 
408,  429. 

Edwardeanism,  280-307 ;  evangelic 
character,  304,  305,  321  ;  trains 
ministers,  347;  in  eastern  Mass., 
Z?>'^r  Za  ;  barrier  to  Unitarianism, 
344;  later  types,  355-36i,  364. 
366. 


Edwards,  Prof.  B.  B.,  384. 
Edwards,    Rev.   Jonathan,    theologic 

views,  254,  255,  267,  280-286; 
Evangelistic  activity,  253-259,  265, 
266;  Indian  missions,  169,  174; 
opposes  Half-Way  Covenant,  182, 
283;  views  on  original  sin,  274- 
276,  284;  on  Arianism,  277;  trea- 
tise on  the  Affections,  282  ;  Humble 
Inquiry,283  ;  Freedom  of  Will,  283  : 
Nature  of  Virtue,  284,  285 ;  dis- 
ciples, 286  sqq.  ;  also  314. 

Edwards,  Rev.  Jonathan,  Jr.,  life- 
work,  293-299 ;  on  the  atonement, 
297-299 ;  answer  to  Chauncy, 
295,  296;  Plan  of  Union,  316; 
also  305,  306,  314,  332. 

Edwards,  Mrs.  Sarah,  254,  286. 

Edwards,  Rev.  Timothy,  254. 

Eells,  Rev.  Gushing,  377,  378,  391, 
392. 

Elders,  226. 

Elders,  ruling,  226-229,  239. 

Eliot,  Rev.  John,  assists  Hooker  in 
teaching,  93;  at  Roxbury,  115; 
Indian  missions,  165-169;  also 
183. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  ecclesiastical  pol- 
icy, 13,  15,  23;  proclamation 
against  Browne's  books,  39;  asks 
Penry's  extradition,  47 ;  attitude 
toward   Puritans,  78. 

Ellis,  Rev.  Geo.  E.,  quoted,  345. 

Emlyn,  Rev.  Thomas,  Arian  writings, 
268,  277,  331. 

Emmons,  Rev.  Nathanael,  theology, 
280,  290,  293,  299-303 ;  opposes 
Half-Way  Covenant,  182;  an- 
swers Chauncy,  295 ;  atonement, 
299 ;  contributions  to  Cong,  polity, 
307,  308 ;  founds  Mass.  Missionary 
Soc,  313;  opposes  Mass,  General 
Association,  334;  opposes  union 
with  Old  Calvinists,  350;  as  theo- 
logical instructor,  300 ;  also  302, 
305,  332,  349,  354. 

Endicott,  Gov.  John,  settles  at  Sa- 
lem, 96;  learns  of  Cong,  from 
Fuller,  100,  103,  104;  Salem  ch. 
founded,  104-107 ;  opposes  dis- 
senters, 107,  108;  influence  on 
Boston   ch.,   112;    in  Roger  Wil- 


444 


INDEX. 


Hams  dispute,  129,  131 ;  against 
Quakers,  147. 

Episcopacy,  established  in  New  Eng- 
land, 193;  exemption  laws  in  favor 
of,  234,  235 ;  prevents  a  Synod, 
212. 

Evarts,  Jeremiah,  339. 

Farrar,  Samuel,  349. 

Faunce,  Elder  Thomas,  228. 

F'emale  Cent  Institution,  313. 

Finney,  Pres.  Charles  G.,  work  and 
theology,  363-365- 

Fisher,  Prof.  George  P.,  397. 

Fisk  University,  404. 

Fiske,  John,  cited,  149,  167. 

Fitch,  Prof.  EleazarT.^  354,  355,  357. 

Fitz,  Richard,  early  Congregational- 
ist,  28-30,  41. 

Flynt,  Rev.  Josiah,  189. 

Foxcroft,  Rev.  Thomas,  266,  272, 
274. 

Freeman,  Rev.  James,  Unitarian 
views   and  letters,  330,  331,  333, 

ZZ^^  339- 

Fuller,  Samuel,  in  ch.  at  Plymouth, 
65,  74;  influence  in  Congregation- 
alizing  the  Mass.  Puritans,  100- 
112. 

Funerals,  early  customs,  245,  246. 

Gager,  William,  113. 

Gardiner,  Samuel  R.,  quoted,  91. 

Gay,  Rev.  Ebenezer,  278. 

Gee,  Rev.  Joshua,  264,  266. 

Gillett,  Rev.  T.  P.,  359. 

Goodwin,  Rev.  E.  P.,  417. 

Goodwin,  Elder  William,  116. 

Gookin,  Capt.  Daniel,  168. 

Gorges,  Sir  Ferdinando,  95,  130. 

Gott,  Charles,  letter  quoted,  105,  106. 

Graham,  Rev.  John,  258. 

Great  Awakening,  the,  255-260;  con- 
sequences, 260-266 ;  rapid  decline, 
264,  265. 

Grebel,  Anabaptist  leader,  9. 

Greenham,  Rev.  Richard,  Browne's 
teacher,  33. 

Greenwood,  John,  early  life,  42 ;  la- 
bors and  sufferings,  29,  41-44,  49  ; 
writings,  44;  martyrdom,  50. 

Griffin,  Rev.  Edward  Dorr,  294; 
atonement,  299 ;  quoted  on  the  re- 
vivals, 320;  Boston  pastorate,  337. 


Grindal,  Edmund,  Archbishop,  op- 
poses use  of  vestments,  17;  exam- 
ination of  London  Separatists,  28; 
opposes  Browne,  37. 

Grotius  Hugo,  299. 

Guilford,  settled,  122,  123. 

Guyse,  Rev.  John,  255. 

Half- Way  Covenant,  beginnings  of 
discussion,  156,  158,  160;  its  na- 
ture and  course,  1 70-182  ;  also  220, 
262,  283,  287,  366. 

Hall,  Gordon,  missionary,  322,  324. 

Hall,  Rev.  Richard,  375,  376. 

Hampton  Court  Conference,  79,  80, 
86. 

Hampton  Institute,  403. 

Harrison,  Robert,  associated  with 
Browne,  35-37,  39,  40. 

Hart,  Rev.  William,  291,  292. 

Hartford  church  organized,  1 16  ;  early 
public  schools,  152. 

Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  359- 
361,  390,  423,  425. 

Harvard  College  founded,  151,  152; 
opposes  Whitefield,  265 ;  becomes 
Unitarian,  334,  335 ;  ministerial 
education,  346;  Divinity  School, 
354;  sociological  instruction,  423. 

Harvey,  Rev.  Joseph,  358,  359. 

Haynes,  Gov.  John,  1 16,  118,  139; 
banishment  of  Roger  Williams,  134, 

135- 

Haynes,  Rev.  Joseph,  178. 

Hazen,  Rev.  H.  A.,  384. 

Heads  of  Agreement,  202,  203,  207. 

Hemmenway,  Rev.  Moses,  291,  292. 

Hewit,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  359. 

Higginson,  Rev.  Francis,  feeling  to- 
ward Ch.  of  England,  99 ;  sent  as 
minister  to  Salem,  104,  105 ;  or- 
dained, 105-107;  death,  129;  also 
231. 

Higginson,  Rev.  John,  beginnings  of 
Salem,  104;  at  Guilford,  123;  An- 
tinomian  Synod,  143  ;  ordination  at 
Salem,  224;  Confession  of  1680, 
188,  189. 

Hobart,  Rev.  L.  Smith,  381,  389. 

Hobart,  Rev.  Peter,  155. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  philosopher,  284. 

Holliman,  Ezekiel,  135,  136. 

Hollis,  Thomas,  346. 


INDEX. 


445 


Home  Missionary  Society.  See  Con- 
gregational Home  Miss.  See. 

Hooker,  Richard,  views  on  Episco- 
pacy, 23. 

Hooker,  Rev.  Thomas,  treatment  by 
Laud,  92,  93;  at  Newtown,  Mass., 
116;  removal  to  Hartford,  118; 
Davenport's  installation,  121  ; 
Roger  Williams  dispute,  133,  134; 
Antinomian  Synod,  142,  143;  Con- 
vention of  1643,  156  ;  writings,  155  ; 
views  on  church-membership,  183; 
his  Hopkinsianism,  289 ;  death, 
183. 

Hooper,  John,  Bishop,  Puritan  scru- 
ples, 17. 

Hopkins,  Rev.  Josiah,  361. 

Hopkins,  Rev.  Samuel,  of  West 
Springfield,  169. 

Hopkins,  Rev.  Samuel,  of  Newport, 
anti-Arian  sermon,  278;  his  theo- 
logical position,  280,  287-291 ;  in- 
fluence on  West,  293 ;  answer  to 
Chauncy,  295 ;  other  references, 
300,  301,  302,  305,  349. 

Hopkinsianism,  nature  and  influence, 
288-292,  300,  301,  355;  founds 
Mass.  Miss.  Soc,  313;  in  eastern 
Mass.,  332,  334,  337  ;  in  beginnings 
of  Andover  Seminary,  348-352. 

Howard  University,  390,  404. 

Hiibmaier,  Anabaptist  leader,  9. 

Hunt,  Rev.  T.  D.,  378,  379. 

Huntington,  Rev.  Joseph,  296. 

Huntington,  Rev.  Joshua,  337. 

Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Anne,  the  Antino- 
mian dispute,    138-145;    also    150, 

151-. 

Hutchinson,  William,  138. 

Hyde,  Hon.  H.  D.,  420. 

Illinois,  Cong,  development   in,  371- 

373- 
Indians,   missions    to,  164-170,   375, 

377.  378,  405,  406. 
Ingraham,  Rev.  David  S.,  402. 
Installation,  225. 
Institutional  church,  the,  423. 
Iowa,  Cong,  beginnings  in,  373,  374. 
Iowa  Band,  the,  374. 
Iowa  College,  374,  424. 
James  I.,  and  Millenary  Petition,  79; 

at  Hampton  Court  Conference,  79, 


80;  quarrels  with  Parliament,  82- 
84 ;  forbids  doctrinal  discussion, 
91 ;  concessions  to  Pilgrims,  62. 

James  II.,  192,  194. 

James,  Rev.  Thomas,  149. 

Jewel,  John,  Bishop,  17. 

Johnson,  Francis,  early  life  and  con- 
version, 45,  47 ;  pastor  of  London 
ch.,  29,  45,  49;  imprisonment,  49, 
5 1 ;  life  and  ministry  in  Amster- 
dam, 53,  54. 

Johnson,  Isaac,  96,  108,  112. 

Keller,  Ludwig,  8. 

Kendall,  Rev.  James,  334. 

"  Kingdom,"  the,  424. 

King's    Chapel,    becomes    Unitarian, 

330,  331- 

Kirke,  Col.  Piercy,  192. 

Kniston,  George,  49. 

Knowles,  Rev.  John,  149,  223. 

Kollock,  Rev.  Henry,  337. 

Lambeth  Articles  of  1595,  86. 

Lanison,  Rev.  Alvan,  342. 

Lane  Seminary,  362,  363. 

Langworthy,  Rev.  I.  P.,  385,  388. 

Lathrop,  Rev.  Joseph,  181. 

Laud,  William,  Archbishop,  life  and 
character,  23,  89-91  ;  oppresses  the 
Puritans,  91-94;  designs  on  Mass., 

130.   131- 

Lawrence,  Prof.  E.  A.,  397. 

Laymen,  influence  in  early  New  Eng- 
land, 150,  151. 

Lechford,  Thomas,  quoted,  242,  243, 
246. 

Lecture,  Preparatory,  244. 

Lectures  (religious  service)  in  early 
New  England,  243,  244. 

Lectureships,  Puritan,  91. 

Lee,  Nicholas,  49. 

Leighton,  Alexander,  Puritan  suf- 
ferer, 92. 

Leverett,  Pres.  John,  199. 

Liberal  Theology,  267-279,  305,  306, 

329.  330,  335.  336,  ZZ^- 
Licensure,  Ministerial,  203,  393. 
Locke,   John,  philosopher,  254,  268. 

2S4. 
Luther,  Martin,  5,  7-9. 
Lyford,  Rev.  John,  at  Plymouth,  70, 

71  ;   at  Salem,  95. 
Lynn,  Henry,  128. 


446 


INDEX. 


Manwaring,  Rev.  Roger,  88. 

Marsh,  Rev.  Frederick,  359. 

Martin  Mar-prelate  tracts,  47. 

Massachusetts,  settlement,  95-116; 
early  difficulties  of  situation,  126- 
128;  severity  toward  dissenters, 
128-148;  governmental  interfer- 
ence in  church  affairs,  114,  115, 
137,  138,  146,  173,  175,  248,  249; 
legislature  founds  a  college  and 
schools,  151,  152;  calls  synods, 
158,  175,  176,  187;  approves  Cam- 
bridge Platform,  160,  161  ;  legisla- 
ture becomes  a  missionary  society, 
164,  165,  249  ;  loss  of  original  char- 
ter, 190-195;  the  charter  of  1691, 
195,  196 ;  government  refuses  to 
call  a  synod,  212;  burns  Pynchon's 
book,  216;  law  regarding  ministe- 
rial election  and  support,  221,  232, 
233,  234;  toleration  of  dissenters, 
234-236 ;  Cong,  disestablished,  236, 

329- 
Massachusetts    Convention,     Annual 

Ministerial,    201,    334;     testimony 

against  Whitefield,  263. 
Massachusetts    General   Association, 

2,ZZ^  334- 
"  Massachusetts     INIissionary    INIaga- 

zine,"  313,  336,  348. 
Massachusetts     Missionary     Society, 

2>^'ii  ZZZi  34^- 

Mather,  Rev.  Cotton,  ministry,  184; 
witchcraft  excitement,  197,  198; 
Proposals  of  1705,  202  ;  petition  for 
Synod,  1725,  212;  religious  views 
of  New  England,  216;  cited,  182; 
quoted,  99,  146,  225,  229,  239- 
241,  245,  246,  253. 

Mather,  Rev.  Increase,  life  and  influ- 
ence, 183-190,  194-196,  199-201, 
203  ;  teachership,  227  ;  Half- Way 
Covenant  discussion,  177,  178, 
183;  opposes  Stoddardeanism,  180; 
books  burned,  259. 

Mather,  Rev.  Moses,  292. 

Mather,  Rev.  Richard,  settlement. 
137,  138;  writings,  154,  155;  Cam- 
bridge Platform,  159-161  ;  Plalf- 
Way  Covenant  views,  174-177; 
also  I  S3. 

Mather,  Rev.  Samuel,  295. 


Maverick,  Rev.  John,  no. 

Maxcy,  Rev.  Jonathan,  299. 

Mayflower  Compact,  66,  67. 

Mayhew,  Rev.  Experience,  his  "Grace 
Defended,"  270,  271,  276. 

Mayhew,  Rev.  Jonathan,  Arian  views. 
276-279,  287;  other  writings,  291 ; 
also  330. 

Mayhew,  Thomas,  and  Thomas,  Jr., 
missionary  efforts,  165,  l66,  270. 

Meeting-houses,  237,  238. 

Melanchthori,  Philip,  5. 

Menno  Simons,  10. 

Mennonites,  10. 

Metcalf,  Theron,  342. 

Michigan,  Association  formed,  371 ; 
seeks  greater  Cong,  union,  381 ; 
Chicago  Sem.,  389. 

Middlebury  College,  310. 

Milford,  settled,  121,  122. 

Millenary  Petition,  79- 

Mills,  Rev.  Jedidiah,  291. 

Mills,  Rev.  Samuel  J.,  322. 

Mills,  Rev.  S.  J.,  Jr.,  his  mission- 
ary endeavors,  322-324,  372,  376  ; 
death,  324. 

Milton,  John,  268 ;  quoted,  94. 

Ministerial  licensure  (see  Licensure) 
Relief  Fund,  429 ;  settlement,  220- 
226 ;  standing,  392-394 ;  support, 
231-237;  training  (see  Theological 
Education). 

Minnesota,  Cong,  beginnings  in,  375, 

376. 

"  Missionary  Herald,"  the,  336. 

Missions,  foreign,  beginning,  322. 
See  also  American  Board. 

Missions,  home,  beginnings  in  Conn., 
311,  312;  in  other  New  England 
States,  313,  314;  Western  work, 
314;  "  Plan  of  Union,"  316-319. 

Missouri,  Cong,  beginnings  in,  376, 

377- 
Mitchell,  Rev.  Jonathan,  177,  183. 
Montagu,     Dr.     Richard,     Anglican 

\iews,  88. 
Morse,  Rev.  Jedidiah,  pastorate,  332  ; 

anti-Unitarian  polemics,   335,  337, 

338;   founding  of  Andover   Sem., 

349,  350 ;  also  294. 
Morton,  Rev.  Cliarles,  198,  199. 
Morton,  Thomas,  73,  128. 


INDEX. 


447 


Murray,  Rev.  John,  Universalist, 
294,  295. 

Music,  in  public  worship,  239,  240. 

National  Council  at  Oberlin,  409-41 1  ; 
doctrinal  position,  411. 

National  Council  of  1865,  395-401, 
403,  408,  409. 

National  Council,  Triennial,  408-412  ; 
its  constitution,  410,  411  ;  its  creed- 
commission,  412-414;  the  benevo- 
lent societies,  421,  422. 

Nettleton,  Rev.  Asahel,  359,  363. 

New  Divinity.     See  Edwardeanism. 

New  Hampshire  Missionary  Society, 

313- 
New  Haven,  settlement  of,  1 19-124; 

ch.    formed,    120,    12 1 ;    Half-Way 

Covenant  dispute,  178. 
New  Haven  theology,  355-358. 
New    Lights,    261,    267,    280,    281, 

305- 

New  West  Education  Commission, 
327,^407,408. 

New  York,  Cong,  in,  310;  home  mis- 
sions to,  311;  Association,  371; 
Albany  Convention,  382  ;  criticises 
National  Council,  411. 

Newell,     Samuel,     missionary,    422- 

324- 
Newton,  Rev.  Roger,  ordination,  224. 
Niles,    Rev.    Samuel,   writings,    272, 

273- 
Norris,  John,  350. 
Norris,  Mrs.  Mary,  324. 
Norton,    Prof.    Andrews,    Unitarian 

writings,  341,  344. 
Norton,  Rev.  John,  174,  177,  216. 
Nott,  Rev.  Samuel,  294,  322-324. 
Nowell,  Increase,  113. 
Noyes,  Rev.  James,  155. 
Noyes,  Rev.  William  H.,  418-421. 
Oakes,  Pres.  Urian,  188. 
Oberlin  College  and  Seminary,  361- 

365,  371  ;   theology,  318,  364,  371. 
Occom,  Rev.  Samson,  169. 
Ohio,    Cong,    planted   in,   310,   311; 

Association,  371,  413. 
Old    Calvinists,    267,    290-292,    295, 

296,  302,  305,  314,  323,  2,11,  334; 

founding    of  Andover   Sem.,   348- 

352. 
Old  Lights,  261,  265,  267. 


Old  South  Ch.  of  Boston,  formed,  179  ; 

also  337. 
Oldham,  John,  at  Plymouth,  70,  71. 
Ordination,  222-226. 
Oregon,    Cong,    beginnings    in,   377, 

378- 
Original  Sin,  discussion  on,  273-276  ; 

Hopkins    on,    290 ;    Emmons    on, 

301. 
Pacific  Theological  Seminary,  392. 
"Panoplist,"    the,    335,     339,     340, 

345.  348,  350.  _ 
Parish.     See  Society. 
Park,  Prof.  E.  A.,    353;    the    atone- 
ment,   299 ;    Cong.    Lil)rary,    384 ; 

statement     of    polity,     400 ;     Am. 

Board,  417;   quoted,  294. 
Park  Street  Ch.,  Boston,  organized, 

337- 
Parker,  Rev.  Thomas,   155. 
Parris,  Rev.  Samuel,  197. 
Parsons,  Rev.  Jonathan,  258,  259. 
Partridge,    Rev.    Ralph,     159,     160, 

I74>  175- 

Pastor,  nature  of  his  office,  226,  227. 

Patton,  Rev.  William    W.,  390,  409. 

Pearson,  Prof.  Eliphalet,  founding  of 
Andover  Sem.,  348-352. 

Pemberton,  Rev.    Ebnezer,  200-202. 

Penry,  John,  early  life,  47 ;  connec- 
tion with  London  ch.,  41,  47,  48; 
writings,  47 ;   martyrdom,    49,    50. 

Perkins,  Rev.  Nathan,  359. 

Peter,  Rev.  Hugh,  102,  140. 

Phillip's  War,  167,  168,  186,  204. 

Phillips,  Rev.  George,  settled  at 
Watertown,  iii,  113,  114;  salary, 
231. 

Phillips,  John,  348. 

Phillips,  John,  Jr.,  349. 

Phillips,  Samuel,  348,  349. 

Phips,  Sir  William,  197. 

Pierpont,  Rev.  James,  254. 

Pierson,  Rev.  Abraham,  of  Branford, 
178. 

Pilgrims,  Scrooby  ch.,  founded,  5b- 
58;  emigration  to  Holland,  59; 
transfer  to  America,  60-67  •  toler- 
ant spirit,  61,  62,  65,  72,  99;  land- 
ing at  Plymouth,  67  ;  early  strug- 
gles, 67-75  •  their  influence  on  the 
Mass.  Puritans,  100-109. 


448 


INDEX. 


Pitkin,  William,  171,  173. 

Plan  of  Union,  316-319;  nature,  316, 
317;  workings,  318,  370-373;  re- 
pudiated by  Old  School  Presb. , 
317;  by  Cong.,  317,  381,  382. 

Pomeroy,  Rev.  Benjamin,  258. 

Pond,  Rev.  Enoch,  354. 

Porter,  Prof.  Ebenezer,  353. 

Porter,  Rev.  Eliphalet,  liberal  views. 

Porter,  Rev.  John,  271,  272. 

Porter,  Rev.  Noah,  323. 

Post,  Rev.  Truman  M.,  377,  395. 

Prayer-meetings,  321. 

Presbyterianism,  in  early  New  Eng- 
land, 155;  English  Pres.  becomes 
largely  Arian,  268 ;  friendly  rela- 
tions with  Cong.,  209,  306,  307, 
314-316;  Plan  of  Union,  316-319; 
associated  in  foreign  and  home 
missions,  325,  326,  328. 

Priestley,  Rev.  Joseph,  331,  338,  339. 

Prince,  Rev.  Thomas,  264-266,  274; 
cited,  no. 

Proposals  of  1705,  202-204,  207,  209. 

Prudden,  Rev.  Peter,  of  Milford, 
1 19-122,  174. 

Puritanism,  its  genesis,  14-18;  its 
second  stage,  18-20;  its  limitations, 
20-22 ;  political  ideals,  25 ;  how 
differing  from  Separatism,  77,  78, 
109  ;  under  James  I.,  79-86  ;  strong- 
ly Calvinistic,  86;  it  seeks  uniform- 
ity of  belief,  87 ;  oppressed  by 
Laud,  91-94;  the  "  lectureships," 
91;  Puritanism  settles  Mass.,  95- 
97;  number  and  quality  of  immi- 
grants, 97,  98  ;  did  not  come  to  estab- 
lish religious  liberty,  98,  99 ;  Con- 
gregationalized  by  the  Pilgrims, 
100-109;  want  of  tolerance,  105, 
107,  108,  125-147;  other  character- 
istics, 1497153- 

Pynchon,  William,  96 ;  theory  of  the 
atonement,  215,  216. 

Quakers,  opposed  by  Puritans,  147, 
148,  150;  exemption  laws,  235. 

Quint,  Rev.  A.  H.,  387,  3S8,  398,  400, 
409. 

Raikes,  Robert,  321. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  estimate  of 
Brownist  strength,  50. 


Randolph,  Edward,  191,  193. 
Rasieres,    Isaac    de,    description    of 

Plymouth,  73,  74. 
RatlifiFe,  or  Ratcliffe,  Philip,  128. 
Reforming  Synod,  185-190. 
Revivals,  251,  252,  255-260,  319-321, 

329.     See  Great  Awakening. 
Rice,  Rev.  Luther,  322,  324. 
Richards,  Rev.  James,  322. 
Robbins,    Rev.    Chandler,    182,    332, 

334-  .  _     . 

Robinson,  John,  connection  with 
Scrooby  ch.,  57;  its  emigration  to 
Holland,  59!  his  influence,  60;  un- 
willingly remains  at  Leyden,  63, 
70;  his  parting  address,  64;  death 
and  character,  71,  72. 

Rogers,  Rev.  John,  278. , 

Ross,  Rev.  A.  H.,  on  Plan  of  Union, 
318;  contributions  to  Cong.,  392- 
394;  also  409. 

Rutherford,   Prof.   Samuel,  writings, 

^55- 
Sacraments,   how   administered,   242, 

243- 

Salaries.     See  Ministerial  Support. 

Salem,  ch.  founded,  103,  104;  its  im- 
portance, 108,  109 ;  witchcraft  ex- 
citement (see  Witchcraft). 

Saltonstall,  Gov.  Gurdon,  206. 

Saltonstall,  Sir  Richard,  96,  ill. 

Sandys,  Edwin,  Archbishop,  17. 

Savoy  Synod,  188;  Confession,  189. 

Saybrook  Platform,  207,  208,  247. 

Saybrook  Synod,  206-209. 

Scripture-reading,  public,  238,  239. 

Seccombe,  Rev.  Charles,  375,  376. 

Separatism,  how  differing  from  Puri- 
tanism, 77>  7^- 

Separatists  (Connecticut),  262,  263. 

Sergeant,  Rev.  John,  169,  374. 

Sermon,  in  early  New  England,  240, 
241. 

Services,  public,  238—244. 

Settlement,  Ministerial.  See  Minis- 
terial Settlement. 

Sewall,  Rev.  Joseph,  264,  274. 

Sewall,  Judge  Samuel,  197. 

Shepard,  Rev.  Thomas,  174,  289. 

Sherman,  Rev.  John,  336. 

Shipherd,  Rev.  J.  J.,  361,  363. 
1  Shute,  Rev.  Daniel,  278. 


INDEX. 


449 


Sin,  Taylor's  views  of,  356 ;  Fitch  on, 
357.     See  Original  Sin. 

Skelton,  Rev.  Samuel,  105,  108,  130, 
231. 

Slavery,  363,  383,  395. 

Smalley,  Rev.  John,  theological  posi- 
tion, 280,  292,  293,  299 ;  teacher  of 
Emmons,  300. 

Smith,  Rev.  Henry,  174. 

Smith,  Rev.  Ralph,  at  Plymouth,  73, 
74;  Separatist  views,  105,  107;  also 
129. 

Smyth,  Prof.  E.  C,  416. 

Smyth,  John,  gathers  ch.  at  Gains- 
borough, 56;  emigration  to  Hol- 
land, 58 ;  becomes  a  Baptist,  58 ; 
after  experiences,  59  ;  also  387. 

Society,  Ecclesiastical,  origin  and  na- 
ture, 220-222. 

Sociology,  study  of,  423,  424. 

Spalding,  Rev.  H.  H.,  377. 

Sparks,  Rev.  Jared,  341. 

Spotswood,  Gov.  Alex.,  149. 

Spring,  Rev.  Gardiner,  358. 

Spring,  Rev.  Samuel,  of  Newbury- 
port,  founding  of  American  Board, 
323 ;  pastorate,  332 ;  founding  of 
Andover  Sem.,  349-351. 

Spring,    Rev.    Samuel,    of   Hartford, 

359- 
Standish,   Myles,  Plymouth  Pilgrim, 

65>  74- 

Stewart,  Rev.  P.  P.,  361. 

Stiles,  Pres.  Ezra,  428. 

Stoddard,  Rev.  Solomon,  on  sacra- 
ments, 180-182 ;  Confession  of 
1680,    188;    revivals,    251;    death, 

254- 

Stoddardeanism,  180-182,  252,  254, 
280,  283. 

Stone,  Rev.  Samuel,  settled  at  Cam- 
bridge, 116;  removal  to  Hartford, 
118;  Half -Way  Covenant,  174; 
quoted,  46;  also  121,  142. 

Storrs,  Rev.  R.  S.,  418-420. 

Stowe,  Prof.  Calvin  E.,  362. 

Strong,  Rev.  Cyprian,  182. 

Stuart,  Prof.  Moses,  reply  to  Chan- 
ning,  341 ;  influence,  352,  353 ;  also 

355- 
Studley,  Daniel,  49. 
Sturtevant,  Pres.  J.  M.,  373. 


Sunday-schools,  321. 

Sybthorpe,  Dr.  Robert,  88. 

Synod,  Antinomian,  142-144. 

Synod,  Cambridge.  See  Cambridge 
Synod. 

Synod,  Saybrook.  See  Saybrook 
Synod. 

Synod  at  the  Savoy.  See  Savoy 
Synod. 

Synod  of  1662,  176-178. 

Synod  of  1680.  See  Reforming 
Synod. 

Tappan,  Prof.  David,  334. 

Taylor,  Rev.  John,  writings  and  in- 
fluence, 269,  270,  273,  275,  279, 
281. 

Taylor,  Prof.  Nathaniel  W.,  304; 
life  and  theology,  355-361. 

Teacher,  nature  of  his  office,  226, 
227. 

Tennent,  Rev.  Gilbert,  256,  258. 

Tennent,  Rev.  William,  256. 

Thacher,  Rev.  Peter,  295. 

Thacher,  Rev.  S.  C,  340. 

Thacker,  Elias,  Cong,  martyr,  40. 

Theological  Education,  in  early  New 
England,  346  ;  later  development, 
346-365,  388-390,  392,  425. 

Thompson,  Rev.  Joseph  P.,  380, 
382,  397- 

Thompson,  Prof.  William,  360. 

Tompson,  Rev.  William,  149. 

Torrey,  Rev.  Samuel,  188. 

Treadwell,  Gov.  John,  323. 

Trumbull,  Rev.  Benjamin,  cited,  121. 

Tufts,  Rev.  John,  240. 

Turner,  Rev.  Asa,  373,  374. 

Tyler,  Prof.  Bennet,  life  and  theol- 
ogy, 358-361 ;  reply  to  Bushnell, 
366. 

Unitarianism,  266,  278,  279,  305, 
306,  321  ;  the  Unitarian  separation, 
329-346;  the  name  "  Unitarian," 
339'  340  j  local  character  of  move- 
ment, 344;  its  literar)'  sympathies, 
345 ;    its    nature,    345,    346 ;     also 

427- 
Universalism,    beginnings     in     New 

England,  294-296. 
Vane,   Gov.   Henry,  the  Antinomian 

dispute.  139-142. 
Vassall,  William,  157. 


450 


INDEX. 


Vermont,  Congregationalism  planted 
in,  309,  310;  home  missions  to, 
311;  Miss.  Soc.  313,  425;  Univer- 
sity of,  310. 

Virginia,  statutes  against  dissent  in, 
148,  149. 

Virginia  Company,  and  the  Pilgrims, 
bo-63,  b6. 

\  oluntaryism,  in  ministerial  support, 
231-237. 

Waldenses,  3,  8. 

Walker,  Rev.  G.  L.,  419. 

Walsingham,  Sir  Francis,  17. 

Ward,  Rev.  Joseph,  391. 

Ware,    Prof.    Henry,  335,    341,   342, 

^347- 

Warham,  Rev.  John,  minister  at 
Dorchester,  no,  ill  ;  at  Windsor, 
118;  Half-Way  Covenant,  174; 
melancholia,  181,  182. 

Watertown,  settled  and  ch.  formed, 
III,  113,  114. 

Watts,  Rev.  Isaac,  255,  268. 

Webster,  Hon.  Daniel,  342. 

Webster,  Rev.  Samuel,  on  original 
sin,  273-275. 

Weddings,   early    customs,  245,  246. 

Weeks,  Rev.  William  R.,  299. 

Welde,  Rev.  Thomas,  115. 

Wells,  William,  339. 

Wesley,  Rev.  John,  257,  267. 

West,  Rev.  Stephen,  theological 
position,  280,  292,  293 ;  treatise 
on  the  atonement,  293,  297;  also 
182,  349. 

Western  Reserve,  settled,  311;  As- 
sociation, 371 ;  Miss.  Soc,  402. 

Westminster  Confession,  approved  by 
Cong.,  159-162,  188,  216. 

Wheelock,  Rev.  Eleazar,  169,  258. 

Wheelwright,  Rev.  John,  the  Anti- 
nomian  dispute,  140— 145. 

Whiston,  Prof.  William,  268. 

Whitby,  Rev.  Daniel,  writings  and 
influence,  269,  273,  281,  283. 

White,  Rev.  John,  of  Dorchester, 
England,  influence  in  beginnings  of 
Mass.,  95-97,  102,  104,  109,  no. 

Whitefield,  Rev.  George,  preaching 
in  New  England,  256-258;  later 
visits,  265,  266 ;  death,  266 ;  also 
294. 


Whitfield,  Rev.  Henry,  settlement  of 
Guilford,  119,  122,  123. 

Whitgift,  John,  Archbishop,  opposes 
Cartwright,  19,  32,  78;  views  on 
episcopacy,  23 ;  opposes  Barrowe, 
42  ;  examines  him  and  Greenwood, 
43-45  ;  censures  Penry,  47 ;  death, 
81  ;  a  strong  Calvinist,  86. 

Whiting,  Rev.  John,  178. 

Whitman,  Dr.  Marcus,  377,  378. 

Whittelsey,  Rev.  Chauncey,  263. 

Wiclif,  Puritanism  flourished  where 
he  had  labored,  18. 

Widows.     See  Deaconess. 

Wigglesworth,  Prof.  Edward,  277. 

Willard,  Rev.  Samuel,  188,  202. 

William  and  Mary,  194,  195. 

William  the  Silent  tolerates  Anabap- 
tists, 10. 

Williams,  Roger,  Separatist  views, 
100,  113;  opinions  and  banish- 
ment,   129-137;   also  51,    74,    164, 

387- 

Wilson,  Rev.  John,  settled  at  Boston, 
III-113;  salary,  231;  Antinomian 
dispute,  140—142;  Synod  of  1662, 
176 ;  also  74. 

Winchester,  Rev.  Elhanan,  295. 

Wincob,  John,  62. 

Winslow,  Gov.  Edward,  joins  Pilgrim 
Ch.,  60;  colonial  agent,  159;  also 
65,  94,  112. 

Winthrop,  Gov.  John,  agrees  to  go  to 
New  England,  96 ;  chosen  gover- 
nor, 97 ;  feeling  toward  Ch.  of  Eng- 
land, 99 ;  denied  communion  at 
Salem,  108 ;  settlement  at  Boston 
and  formation  of  ch.,  1 1  i-i  13  ;  An- 
tinomian dispute,  140-144;  minis- 
terial support,  144,  232;  death, 
183;  quoted,  223;  also  74,  135. 

Wisconsin,  Cong,  in,  374,  375. 

Wise,  Rev.  John,  life  and  writings, 
209-212,  307. 

Witchcraft  excitement  at  Salem  and 
elsewhere,  196-198. 

Witter,  William,  146. 

Woman's  Missionary  Societies,  313, 
406,  407,  429 ;  women  in  Christian 
work,  424,  425. 

Woods,  Prof.  Leonard,  founding  of 
Andover,  350-353  ;  professorship  at 


INDEX. 


451 


Andover,  352,  353 ;  reply  to  Chan- 
ning,  341 ;  to  Taylor,  358. 

Worcester,  Rev.  Samuel,  beginnings 
of  American  Board,  323 ;  theolog- 
ical views,  334 ;  reply  to  Channing, 
340. 

Worship.     See  Services. 

Yale,  Rev.  Cyrus,  360. 

Yale  College,  founded,  152,  206;  ex- 


pulsion of  Brainerd,  263 ;  against 
Whitefield,  265 ;  Dwight's  presi- 
dency, 301,  302 ;  ministerial  educa- 
tion at,  346;  Divinity  School,  354— 

357.  389.  390,  424- 
"  Year  Book,"  the,  383,  384,  425. 
Young  People's  Society  of  Christian 

Endeavor,  422. 
Zwingli,  Huldreich,  5,  7-9. 


Ube  Hmerfcan  Cburcb  Ibistor^  Series, 


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IN  Thirteen  Volumes,  at  $2.00  per  Volume 


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Vol.  U. 

Vol.  111. 

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Vol.  V. 

Vol.  VI. 

Vol.  Vll. 

Vol.  VIII.- 


The  Religious  Forces  of  the  United  States,  H.  K.  Carroll,  LL.D., 

Editor  of  The  Independent,  Supt.  Church  Statistics,  U.  S.  Census,  etc 

Baptists,     . 


Congregationalists, 

Lutherans,        .      , 

Methodists,      . 

Presbyterians,  . 
Protestant  Episcopal, 


Moravian, 


Vol.    IX,     Roman  Catholics, 


Vol.     X.- 


VoL    XI.- 


Vol.  XII.- 


Vol.  Xiii.- 


Rev.  a.  H.  Newman,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Professor  of  Church  History,  McMaster 

University  of  Toronto,  Ont. 

Rev.  WiLLiSTON  Walker,  Ph.D., 

Professor  of  Modern  Church  History, 
Theological  Seminary,  Hartford,  Conn, 

Rev.  H.  E.  Jacobs,  D.D.,  LL.D.. 

Professor  of  Systematic  Theology    j  the 
Ev.  Lutheran  Seminary,  Phila.,  Pa. 

Rev.  J.  M.  Buckley,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Editor  of  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate. 

Rev.  Robert  Ellis  Thompson,  D.D., 
Philadelphia.  Pa, 

Rev,  C.  C.  Tiffany,  D.D., 
New  York. 

Reformed  Church,  Dutch,  Rev.  E.  T.  Corwin,  D.D., 

Rector  Hertzog  Hall,  New  Brunswick,  N.J. 

Reformed  Church,  German,REv.  J.  H.  Dubbs,  D.D., 

Professor  of  History,  Franklyn  and 
Marshall  College,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

Rev.  J.  T.  Hamilton,  D.D., 
Professor  of  Church  History,  Theologicai 
Seminary,  Bethlehem,  Pa. 

Rev.  T.  O'Gorman,  D.D., 

Professor  of  Church  History,  Catholic 
University,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  J.  H.  Allen,  D.D., 
Late  Lecturer  on  Ecclesiastical  History, 
Harvard  University,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Rev,  Richard  Eddy,  D.D., 

Providence,  R.  I, 
Rev.  Gross  Alexander,  D.D., 
Professor   Greek    and    N.  T.  Exegesis, 
Nashville,  Tenn. 

Rev.  Thomas  C.  Johnson,  D.D., 
Professor     Ecclesiastical     History    and 
Polity,  Hampden-Sidney,  Va. 

Rev.  James  B.  Scouller,  D.D., 

Newville,  Pa, 
Rev.  R.  V.  Foster,  D.D., 
Professor  Biblical  Exegesis,  Cumberland 
University,  Lebanon,  Tenn. 

Rev.  R.  B,  Tyler,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  A.  C.   Thomas,  M.A., 

Haverford  College,  Haverford,  Pa. 
R.   H.  Thomas,  M.D.,  Baltimore,  Md, 
Rev.   D.   Berger,  D.D.,  Dayton,  Ohio. 

Rev.  S.  P.  Spreng, 
Editor  Evangelical  Messenger,  Cleve- 
land, Ohio. 

Rev.  Samuel  Macauley  Jackson, 

New  Yorit 


Unitarians, 

Universalists,    . 
M.  E.  Church,  So., 

Presb)^erians,  So., . 

United  Presbyterians, 
Cumb.  Presbyterians, 

Disciples,    .      . 

FriendSj      .      .      . 

United  Brethren,     . 
Ev.  Association. 


Bibliography, 

History  of 

American 

Christianity, 


Rev.  Leonard  Woousey  Bacon,  D.D 


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A  history  of  the  Congregational  churches